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LEESBURG, Va. (AP) — Three separate trials will be held next year to adjudicate charges against the former superintendent of a northern Virginia school system as well as the system's primary spokesman.
Ex-Superintendent Scott Ziegler and spokesman Wayde Byard made initial appearances Tuesday in Loudoun County Circuit Court after indictments against them were unsealed Monday.
The indictments came from a special grand jury commissioned by Attorney General Jason Miyares that investigated the system's response to two sexual assaults committed by a student last year.
Ziegler is facing three misdemeanor charges while Byard faces a single felony count of perjury.
Tuesday's hearings were short and largely procedural. At the request of Special Counsel Theo Stamos, Judge James Plowman set two separate trial dates, in May and July, to hear the charges against Ziegler. Byard's trial will be held at a date to be determined.
In a statement after Tuesday's hearing, Byard said he plans to plead not guilty.
“At this point, I can’t address any specific charges because neither my attorney nor myself have been given any indication of what I’ve been alleged to do,” Byard said.
Indeed, the indictments provide almost no details of the charges against the two. In Byard's case, the indictment simply accuses him of perjury on Aug. 2, 2022. School officials were being subpoenaed to testify before the special grand jury around that time.
Ziegler left the courthouse without speaking to reporters. The three misdemeanors against him include one count of false publication, one count of prohibited conduct related to alleged retaliation against a teacher, and one count of penalizing an employee for a court appearance.
Two of those counts relate not to the sexual assaults that prompted the special grand jury probe but instead to a lawsuit filed by a special education teacher, Erin Brooks, who alleged that the school system retaliated against her after she reported a special needs student at an elementary school had sexually assaulted her. That lawsuit is ongoing.
The false publication charge relates to a statement Ziegler made on June 22, 2021. That’s when Ziegler attended a school board meeting and told board members that there hadn’t been any assaults in school bathrooms.
In fact, the first assault had occurred a month earlier in a bathroom stall at Stone Bridge High School, and emails show Ziegler had been made aware of it, according to a scathing report issued last week by the grand jury.
The report concluded that Ziegler lied to the public to cover up what occurred, and accused authorities of ignoring multiple warning signs that could have prevented the second assault, which occurred at Broad Run High School in October 2021 after the student was transferred there.
The student was later convicted of both assaults in juvenile court.
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/3-trials-to-be-held-against-Loudoun-school-17652257.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:19
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en
| 0.977561
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Fire burns at NYPD auto impound warehouse in Brooklyn
NEW YORK - A huge fire tore through a waterfront warehouse in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning that the NYPD uses as an auto pound and also storage for DNA evidence from crime scenes.
At least eight people suffered minor injuries, officials said.
The Erie Basin Auto Pound warehouse is located on Columbia St. in Red Hook. The NYPD said that a vehicle somehow caught on fire and the flames spread.
At least 3 fireboats were pouring water onto the building. Flames were coming out of the roof and smoke was visible for miles. The smoke blew south towards the Sunset Park neighborhood.
Get breaking news alerts in the free FOX5NY News app! | Sign up for FOX 5 email newsletters
The first call came in to the FDNY just after 10:30 a.m. The was still going Tuesday evening and might take days to bring under control, FDNY Chief of Department John Hodgens said.
The fire went to three alarms with 33 units and 140 firefighters at the scene.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) sent a team to the scene to help in the investigation.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/fire-burns-at-nypd-auto-impound-warehouse-in-brooklyn
| 2022-12-14T01:23:19
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en
| 0.961214
|
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A federal appeals court heard arguments Tuesday in a dispute over a land exchange proposed during the Trump administration that is aimed at building a road through a national wildlife refuge in Alaska that residents of a remote Alaska community see as a critical health and safety issue.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month vacated a decision by a divided three-judge appeals panel that reversed a ruling rejecting a proposed land exchange. In setting aside the decision from the three-judge panel, the court also agreed to a rehearing of the matter by a fuller panel of judges. Conservation groups had petitioned for the rehearing, which took place Tuesday in California.
During the hearing, attorneys for the U.S. government, state of Alaska and conservation groups were peppered with narrowly tailored questions.
Residents of the remote community of King Cove have long sought a land connection through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge to Cold Bay, which is about 18 miles (29 kilometers) away and has an all-weather airport. King Cove residents contend this is a health and safety issue. The refuge, near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, contains internationally recognized habitat for migrating waterfowl.
In 2013, during the Obama administration, Interior Department officials, including then-Secretary Sally Jewell, declined a land exchange, citing an environmental review that showed construction of a road would lead to “significant degradation of irreplaceable ecological resources.” Efforts to move forward with an exchange during the Trump administration faced legal challenges, including a 2019 agreement advanced by then-Secretary David Bernhardt that is the subject of the current litigation.
Last year, a U.S. Justice Department attorney, in arguing a position taken under the Trump administration, told an appeals court panel President Joe Biden's Interior secretary, Deb Haaland, planned to review the record and visit King Cove before taking her own position.
Haaland visited King Cove earlier this year and at the time of her Alaska visit told reporters she was “in a learning process” regarding the issue. Interior spokesperson Melissa Schwartz said by email Tuesday she had no updates to share on the matter.
Attorneys for the U.S. government, in court documents, argued against a rehearing of the case. They said the ruling from the three-judge panel in March “correctly concluded that Secretary Bernhardt assumed the facts that motivated Secretary Jewell remained the same, but placed more weight on the health and well-being of the people of King Cove than the other factors.”
Bridget Psarianos, an attorney with Trustees for Alaska, which is representing a consortium of conservation groups in the case, said last month that in agreeing to review the matter, the court “signaled that there are significant legal questions with the split panel’s ruling that an unelected Interior Secretary may overrule Congress by giving away lands designated as Wilderness.”
The court did not indicate Tuesday when it might rule.
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/Court-hears-arguments-in-Alaska-refuge-road-17652357.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:19
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| 0.966305
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By MICHAEL R. SISAK
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The director of the federal Bureau of Prisons is defending her decision to rally behind a high-ranking agency official who climbed the ranks after beating Black inmates in the 1990s, saying Tuesday that she feels he’s shown contrition and deserves a second chance.
Colette Peters, making her first comments since The Associated Press published an investigation chronicling Thomas Ray Hinkle’s sordid past and subsequent promotions, said she met with Hinkle soon after starting as director in August and came away convinced that he should keep his job.
“He openly shared some of his past and has shared with me that he’s a changed man, that he’s not the person he was 25 years ago, and that he wants to spend the remainder of his career helping people understand not to make those exact same mistakes,” Peters said.
“It’s that type of behavior change that we’re looking for in both those in our custody and who work for us. Some, they don’t get a second chance. But he owned it.”
Peters spoke with the AP after testifying Tuesday before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has spent months scrutinizing the Bureau of Prisons’ inability to clamp down on rampant staff sexual misconduct.
Subcommittee Chairman Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said the eight-month, bipartisan investigation — after the arrests of a warden and other workers at a federal women’s prison in Dublin, California — shows that the agency is “failing systemically” in its duty to protect female inmates from the “cruel and unusual punishment” of abuse at the hands of correctional workers.
The Bureau of Prisons’ inability to detect and prevent staff-on-inmate assaults has led to dozens of assaults and left some accused workers free to offend again, the subcommittee found. The findings echo common complaints about the agency’s handing of sexual abuse and other staff misconduct, some of which has been detailed in AP reporting.
Among the subcommittee’s other findings: Audits meant to ensure compliance with a federal prison rape prevention law have proven inadequate; inmates who report abuse often face retaliation; and the agency’s internal affairs office is facing a backlog of 8,000 cases, including hundreds of sex abuse allegations. Peters said she’s added 40 workers to the internal affairs office to process cases faster.
At the Dublin prison, the rape-prevention audits were being supervised by the former warden, Ray Garcia, who was convicted last week of abusing three inmates. At a prison in Coleman, Florida, where six have been accused of sexually abusing inmates since 2012, officials shipped all the female inmates away two days before they were to be interviewed by auditors.
“This situation is intolerable,” Ossoff said. “Sexual abuse of inmates is a gross abuse of human and constitutional rights and cannot be tolerated by the United States Congress.”
Tuesday’s hearing began with disturbing testimony from three victims of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse — women who say the Bureau of Prisons compounded their suffering by ignoring warning signs, enabling coverups and failing to equip prisons with practical tools, like functioning security cameras.
Carolyn Richardson recounted how a correctional officer at a federal lockup in New York City preyed on her visual impairment, sexually assaulting her after he brought her to medical appointments. Briane Moore, crying at times, said the prison captain who abused her had threatened to put her in solitary confinement or transfer her to another prison if she reported him.
Linda De La Rosa said the Bureau of Prisons “entirely failed” in allowing the correctional officer who attacked her and three other women in 2019 at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky, to continue working despite previous allegations of sexual abuse. The officer, Christopher Goodwin, pleaded guilty in March and is serving 11 years in prison.
“The problem is the old boys club,” De La Rosa said. “Prison staff, managers, investigators, correctional officers — they all work together for years, if not decades. No one wants to rock the boat, let alone listen to female inmates. There is no objective, independent oversight.”
The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, as Richardson, Moore and De La Rosa have done. All sexual activity between a prison worker and an inmate is illegal. Correctional employees enjoy substantial power over inmates, controlling every aspect of their lives from mealtime to lights out, and there is no scenario in which an inmate can give consent.
Peters, who testified alongside Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, has vowed to change the culture that has enabled officers to sexually assault inmates. She reiterated the Bureau of Prisons’ zero-tolerance policy for staff sexual misconduct and said she’s urged transparency throughout the agency, so that she’s not kept in the dark on any incidents that occur.
A Justice Department working group issued recommendations last month for curbing staff sexual misconduct. Among them: starting an anonymous abuse reporting process, overhauling investigations, seeking longer prison sentences for workers convicted of abuse and potentially granting early release to victimized inmates.
Peters, who visited Dublin early in her tenure, said the crisis there shows some prisons have been infected with a “culture of abuse and a culture of misconduct” and that “when it’s high-level officials engaging in these egregious criminal acts there’s clearly a culture” of abuse.
“That culture needs to be reset in order to ensure the safety and security of those in our care and custody,” Peters testified. “And I think we do have systemic changes in the works that will help us reset that culture there and throughout the federal Bureau of Prisons.”
As for Hinkle, Peters will face more questions about him this week when she meets with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin. The Illinois Democrat tweeted that he was “very concerned about the allegations” in the AP’s article about Hinkle “and whether BOP will address abuses, prioritize safety, and improve their flawed approach to misconduct investigations.”
On Monday, prison workers and union officials picketed outside the agency’s regional office in Stockton, California, and called on Peters to fire Hinkle and his boss, Regional Director Melissa Rios.
__
On Twitter, follow Michael Sisak at http://twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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https://wtmj.com/national/2022/12/13/prisons-chief-official-who-beat-inmates-deserves-2nd-chance/
| 2022-12-14T01:23:21
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en
| 0.957965
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You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/washington-commanders/articles/41862650
| 2022-12-14T01:23:23
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en
| 0.738227
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WETUMPKA, Ala. (AP) — Two Alabama women have been convicted of misdemeanor crimes because of their efforts to feed and trap stray cats.
Local news outlets report that Wetumpka Municipal Judge Jeff Courtney on Tuesday found Beverly Roberts, 85, guilty of criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct. Mary Alston, 61, was found guilty of criminal trespassing and interfering with governmental operations.
Courtney sentenced both women to 2 years of unsupervised probation and 10 days in jail. The jail sentence was suspended, meaning the women will serve no time. Each woman was also fined $100 and ordered to pay court costs.
The verdicts followed a bench trial before Courtney in the town just north of Montgomery. Attorneys for the two women say they will appeal.
The women were arrested and taken to jail by police in Wetumpka in June. The police chief said the women had previously been warned not to feed stray animals.
Terry Luck, an attorney for one of the women, said earlier that the women were performing a public service by trapping stray cats and having them neutered and spayed.
Wetumpka Police Chief Greg Benton has said feeding the cats had created a nuisance because it attracted more animals to the area. He said both women had been “repeatedly” warned to stop prior to being arrested.
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Alabama-women-convicted-for-feeding-trapping-17652311.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:25
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en
| 0.983745
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Florida's property insurance crisis: State Senate passes bill to overhaul property insurance system
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The Florida Senate on Tuesday approved sweeping legislation that would overhaul the state’s property insurance system, which has struggled due to insolvencies, high costs and major storms.
The bill would create a $1 billion reinsurance fund, reduce litigation costs and compel some customers to leave a state-created insurer. It also would force insurers to respond more promptly to claims and increase state oversight of insurers’ conduct following hurricanes.
The Republican proposal was put forth during the GOP-led Legislature’s second special session this year aimed at stabilizing the state’s property insurance market. The state House is expected to give the measure final passage this week.
Florida has struggled to control rising property insurance costs and hold onto insurers in a market where natural disasters weigh heavily on the cost of business. The session comes after Hurricane Ian smashed into the southwest coast in late September and caused an estimated $40 billion to $70 billion in insured losses.
The bill, which builds on insurance legislation passed in May, is not expected to immediately lower rates for policyholders, which has drawn criticism from Democrats. Backers of the bill argue that it is meant to stabilize the market, which then could lower rates in the future.
"As we look forward, and as these reforms take place and work their way through the ratemaking process, I absolutely believe it will drive their costs down," said Republican state Sen. Jim Boyd, who sponsored the bill. "While it might not happen today, I absolutely believe we will have rate relief as we move forward in the future."
Average annual premiums have risen to more than $4,200 in Florida, which is triple the national average. About 12% of homeowners in the state don’t have property insurance, compared to the national average of 5%, according to the Insurance Information Institute, a research organization funded by the insurance industry.
"Homeowners in Florida are being crushed right now by the cost of housing and insurance costs are a major part of that," said Democratic state Sen. Darryl Rouson. "Any action that does not address the instability and costs to the consumer and does not provide meaningful near term relief for policyholders, I believe falls short of our goals."
Senate Democrats filed a round of amendments to the bill and peppered Boyd with detailed questions about the state of the insurance market, insurance litigation and various elements of the complex proposal.
Republicans rejected the Democratic amendments following several hours of debate and eventually approved the legislation.
The insurance industry has seen two straight years of net underwriting losses exceeding $1 billion each year in Florida. Six insurers have gone insolvent this year, while others are leaving the state.
The insurance industry says litigation is partly to blame. Loopholes in Florida law, including fee multipliers that allow attorneys to collect higher fees for property insurance cases, have made Florida an excessively litigious state, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute has said.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/floridas-property-insurance-crisis-state-senate-passes-bill-to-overhaul-property-insurance-system
| 2022-12-14T01:23:25
|
en
| 0.965545
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CAPE GIRARDEU, Mo. (AP) — A man has pleaded guilty to hate crime and arson charges for setting a fire that destroyed an Islamic center in southeast Missouri two years ago, the U.S. Justice Department announced Tuesday.
Nicholas John Proffitt, 44, entered the plea in the case of the torching of the Cape Girardeau Islamic Center on April 24, 2020, which was the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the department said. It was the second time he had attacked the building.
Security video showed Proffitt breaking the building's glass window and throwing two containers inside. He then entered, poured the contents of two gallon-size containers throughout the foyer and the hallway and lit the blaze, according to court records.
About a dozen people were inside at the time but escaped unharmed. The fire made the building unsuitable for use as a center.
Proffitt admitted he set the blaze because of the religious nature of the building, prosecutors said.
His public defender did not immediately return an after-hours phone call seeking comment.
Sentencing is set for May 22. Proffitt faces up to 20 years in prison for damage to religious property and a mandatory minimum of 10 years, consecutive to any other sentence, for using fire to commit a federal felony. He also could be fined up to $250,000 on each charge.
In 2009, Proffitt pleaded guilty to state charges for throwing rocks that damaged the same mosque and a vehicle in the parking lot. He was sentenced to three years in prison in that incident.
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/Guilty-plea-on-hate-arson-charges-in-Islamic-17652270.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:26
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en
| 0.964293
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rican salsa singer and musician “Lalo” Rodríguez was found dead Tuesday at a public housing project in the U.S. territory, according to police. He was 64.
Police said that while there were no visible signs of violence on his body, an autopsy would determine the cause of death.
The singer, who was born Ubaldo Rodríguez Santos, had struggled for years with drugs and alcohol and was previously charged with possession of cocaine.
Rodríguez once formed part of Eddie Palmieri’s band and is best known for his 1988 hit, “Ven, devórame otra vez” or “Come, Devour Me Again.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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https://wtmj.com/entertainment/2022/12/13/puerto-rican-salsa-singer-lalo-rodriguez-dies-at-64-3/
| 2022-12-14T01:23:27
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en
| 0.979355
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You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/washington-commanders/articles/41862787
| 2022-12-14T01:23:29
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en
| 0.738227
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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A federal appeals court heard arguments Tuesday in a dispute over a land exchange proposed during the Trump administration that is aimed at building a road through a national wildlife refuge in Alaska that residents of a remote Alaska community see as a critical health and safety issue.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month vacated a decision by a divided three-judge appeals panel that reversed a ruling rejecting a proposed land exchange. In setting aside the decision from the three-judge panel, the court also agreed to a rehearing of the matter by a fuller panel of judges. Conservation groups had petitioned for the rehearing, which took place Tuesday in California.
During the hearing, attorneys for the U.S. government, state of Alaska and conservation groups were peppered with narrowly tailored questions.
Residents of the remote community of King Cove have long sought a land connection through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge to Cold Bay, which is about 18 miles (29 kilometers) away and has an all-weather airport. King Cove residents contend this is a health and safety issue. The refuge, near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, contains internationally recognized habitat for migrating waterfowl.
In 2013, during the Obama administration, Interior Department officials, including then-Secretary Sally Jewell, declined a land exchange, citing an environmental review that showed construction of a road would lead to “significant degradation of irreplaceable ecological resources.” Efforts to move forward with an exchange during the Trump administration faced legal challenges, including a 2019 agreement advanced by then-Secretary David Bernhardt that is the subject of the current litigation.
Last year, a U.S. Justice Department attorney, in arguing a position taken under the Trump administration, told an appeals court panel President Joe Biden's Interior secretary, Deb Haaland, planned to review the record and visit King Cove before taking her own position.
Haaland visited King Cove earlier this year and at the time of her Alaska visit told reporters she was “in a learning process” regarding the issue. Interior spokesperson Melissa Schwartz said by email Tuesday she had no updates to share on the matter.
Attorneys for the U.S. government, in court documents, argued against a rehearing of the case. They said the ruling from the three-judge panel in March “correctly concluded that Secretary Bernhardt assumed the facts that motivated Secretary Jewell remained the same, but placed more weight on the health and well-being of the people of King Cove than the other factors.”
Bridget Psarianos, an attorney with Trustees for Alaska, which is representing a consortium of conservation groups in the case, said last month that in agreeing to review the matter, the court “signaled that there are significant legal questions with the split panel’s ruling that an unelected Interior Secretary may overrule Congress by giving away lands designated as Wilderness.”
The court did not indicate Tuesday when it might rule.
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Court-hears-arguments-in-Alaska-refuge-road-17652357.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:31
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en
| 0.966305
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Fusion breakthrough at Livermore Lab is a milestone for climate, clean energy
LIVERMORE, Calif. - Scientists announced Tuesday that they have for the first time produced more energy in a fusion reaction than was used to ignite it — a major breakthrough in the decades-long quest to harness the process that powers the sun.
Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California achieved the result, which is called net energy gain, the Energy Department said. Net energy gain has been an elusive goal because fusion happens at such high temperatures and pressures that it is incredibly difficult to control.
The breakthrough will pave the way for advancements in national defense and the future of clean power, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and other officials said.
"Ignition allows us to replicate for the first time certain conditions that are found only in the stars and the sun,″ Granholm told a news conference in Washington. "This milestone moves us one significant step closer to the possibility of zero-carbon abundant fusion energy powering our society.″
Fusion ignition is "one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century,″ Granholm said, adding that the breakthrough "will go down in the history books.″
Appearing with Granholm, White House science adviser Arati Prabhakar called the fusion ignition "a tremendous example of what perseverance really can achieve" and "an engineering marvel beyond belief.″
Proponents of fusion hope that it could one day offer nearly limitless, carbon-free energy and displace fossil fuels and other traditional energy sources. Producing energy that powers homes and businesses from fusion is still decades away. But researchers said the announcement marked a significant advance nonetheless.
"It’s almost like it’s a starting gun going off," said professor Dennis Whyte, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a leader in fusion research. "We should be pushing towards making fusion energy systems available to tackle climate change and energy security."
Kim Budil, director of the Livermore Lab, said there are "very significant hurdles" to commercial use of fusion technology, but advances in recent years mean the technology is likely to be widely used in "a few decades" rather than 50 or 60 years as previously expected.
Fusion works by pressing hydrogen atoms into each other with such force that they combine into helium, releasing enormous amounts of energy and heat. Unlike other nuclear reactions, it doesn’t create radioactive waste.
President Joe Biden called the breakthrough a good example of the need to continue to invest in research and development. "Look what’s going on from the Department of Energy on the nuclear front. There’s a lot of good news on the horizon," he said at the White House.
Billions of dollars and decades of work have gone into fusion research that has produced exhilarating results — for fractions of a second. Previously, researchers at the National Ignition Facility, the division of Lawrence Livermore where the success took place, used 192 lasers and temperatures multiple times hotter than the center of the sun to create an extremely brief fusion reaction.
The lasers focus an enormous amount of heat on a small metal can. The result is a superheated plasma environment where fusion may occur.
Riccardo Betti, a professor at the University of Rochester and expert in laser fusion, said there’s a long road ahead before the net energy gain leads to sustainable electricity.
He likened the breakthrough to when humans first learned that refining oil into gasoline and igniting it could produce an explosion.
"You still don’t have the engine, and you still don’t have the tires," Betti said. "You can’t say that you have a car."
The net energy gain achievement applied to the fusion reaction itself, not the total amount of power it took to operate the lasers and run the project. For fusion to be viable, it will need to produce significantly more power and for longer.
It is incredibly difficult to control the physics of stars. Whyte said the fuel has to be hotter than the center of the sun. The fuel does not want to stay hot — it wants to leak out and get cold. Containing it is a challenge, he said.
The achievement of net energy gain isn’t a huge surprise from the California lab because of the progress it had already made, according to Jeremy Chittenden, a professor at Imperial College in London specializing in plasma physics.
But, he said, "that doesn’t take away from the fact that this is a significant milestone."
One approach to fusion turns hydrogen into plasma, an electrically charged gas, which is then controlled by humongous magnets. This method is being explored in France in a collaboration among 35 countries called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, as well as by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a private company.
Last year, the teams working on those projects on two continents announced significant advancements in the vital magnets needed for their work.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/fusion-breakthrough-at-livermore-lab-is-a-milestone-for-climate-clean-energy
| 2022-12-14T01:23:31
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| 0.946306
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/HKO-WHL-Scoring-Ldrs-17652265.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:32
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en
| 0.92167
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By MICHAEL R. BLOOD
AP Political Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The City Council was disrupted Tuesday by another round of boisterous, foul-mouthed protests after a councilman facing widespread calls to resign for his involvement in a racism scandal defiantly returned to the chamber and took his seat.
Councilman Kevin de Leon’s appearance prompted some council members to walk out amid shouting and chanting from rival groups in the audience, while council President Paul Krekorian ordered a recess amid the outburst.
The turmoil represented a reprise of a Friday meeting where de Leon appeared in the ornate chamber for the first time since mid-October. He is the only council member involved in the scandal still resisting calls from President Joe Biden to step down, while continuing to collect his annual salary of nearly $229,000 — among the most lucrative paydays for city council members in the nation.
Protesters were shouting and waving signs in the audience throughout the meeting. During a public comment period, most of those who spoke denounced de Leon as a racist and called on the councilman to resign, but some supporters defended him and lauded his work in his district, which includes downtown Los Angeles and the heavily Latino Boyle Heights neighborhood.
The continuing disruptions turned the meeting at times into a veritable Theater of the Absurd, with protesters screaming profanities, city staffers pleading for calm and police evicting some protesters who refused repeated orders to settle down.
When de Leon appeared about midway through the meeting, more shouting ensued, some council members immediately left the room and Council President Paul Krekorian quickly called a recess. The council later resumed business, enacting Mayor Karen Bass’ signature proposal declaring a state of emergency for homelessness that she promised to propose on her first day in office.
“This is a monumental day for the city,” Bass said in a statement after the vote. “This declaration will enable us to move faster and unlock every tool possible” to take on the crisis, with over 40,000 unhoused people living in tent encampments or rusty RVs that have spread into virtually every neighborhood.
The scandal was triggered by a leaked recording of crude, racist comments from a year-old meeting involving de Leon, then-council President Nury Martinez, labor leader Ron Herrera and then-Councilman Gil Cedillo — all Latino Democrats — in which they plotted to expand their political power at the expense of Black voters during a realignment of council district boundaries.
Martinez and Herrera resigned within days of the disclosure of the recording, and Cedillo vanished from public sight. Cedillo’s term ended Monday after he lost a reelection bid earlier this year, leaving de Leon as the only person involved in the scandal still holding his job.
It remains unknown who made the recording that was posted on a website, or why.
De Leon has apologized repeatedly but said he will not resign. He argues that he wants to continue working on homelessness, fallout from the pandemic and the threat of renter evictions in his district.
There is no legal avenue for his colleagues to remove him — the council can only suspend a member when criminal charges are pending.
Stripped of his ability to participate on council committees, facing widespread pressure to resign and after an extended absence from council meetings, de Leon has been maneuvering to return to the public sphere, despite being reviled by colleagues who say they cannot work with him.
Last week, he scuffled with an activist who heckled him at a holiday toy giveaway.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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https://wtmj.com/national/2022/12/13/racism-scandal-prompts-another-day-of-protests-in-la-council/
| 2022-12-14T01:23:34
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| 0.97492
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You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/washington-commanders/articles/41863062
| 2022-12-14T01:23:35
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| 0.738227
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Heartbreaking photos show whale migrated 3,000 miles despite broken spine
Harrowing images show the heartbreaking migration of an injured humpback whale named Moon.
Moon miraculously traveled from Canada to Hawaii with a severe spinal injury but, sadly, will not be strong enough to make it back.
Moon has been tracked by researchers in the Pacific for many years. She, like so many other whales, migrates every year from the feeding grounds near British Columbia to the breeding grounds near Hawaii, and back.
In 2020, researchers spotted her with a calf, passing on the tradition of the journey.
But earlier this month, Moon was discovered to be in severe distress.
Moon’s discovery
On Dec. 1, a whale-watching vessel in Hawaii reported seeing a sick whale, and researchers with the Pacific Whale Foundation determined the whale had severe spinal trauma and could no longer swim using its tail.
The whale was soon identified to be Moon, and her tragic story began to unravel.
Moon was actually first spotted with her broken tail months prior, on Sept. 7, along the remote coast of British Columbia. Drone cameras from BCWhales, a nonprofit research organization, captured the images, showing something was very wrong. The whale’s entire back, from the dorsal fin to fluke, was curved into an unnatural ‘S’ shape.
BCWhales assumed this kind of trauma was because the whale had been hit by a large boat.
Image: BCWhales
But, BCWhales researchers weren’t able to get a good enough look at the tail marker, which is used to identify and track whales, because of the injury. So they weren’t sure which whale it was.
But, after seeing images from the Pacific Whale Foundation of Moon in Hawaii, they compared drone footage and learned it was the same whale they had seen three months prior — 3,000 miles away.
Moon’s miraculous, yet final journey
"The harrowing images of Moon’s twisted body in Maui stirred us all. Not only was she likely in considerable pain, but she had somehow migrated thousands of miles across the North Pacific to her Hawaiian breeding grounds without being able to propel herself with her tail," BCWhales said.
Jens Currie, Chief Scientist with Pacific Whale Foundation, said Moon used only her pectoral fins to swim. As Janine Wray, CEO and lead researcher for BCWhales described it, Moon was "literally doing the breaststroke to make that migration."
Furthermore, the migration left her "completely emaciated," which is evident by her skinner frame. She also accumulated an excessive load of whale lice.
Image: Pacific Whale Foundation
"The poor condition of the animal when she was first sighted off the coast of Maui speaks to the toll that this took on her," Currie added.
In her current condition, Moon is not expected to survive to make the return journey.
"We will never truly understand the strength it took for Moon to take on what is regrettably her last journey, but it is on us to respect such tenacity within another species and recognize that vessel strikes lead to a devastating end," BCWhales said.
Wray told The Guardian that human intervention isn’t possible because euphonization would risk poisoning the marine life that would feed off her larger-than-life remains.
Whales and vessel strikes
Vessel strikes continue to pose a real and imminent threat to local whale populations, according to the Pacific Whale Foundation.
Vessel strikes are common, especially in areas where shipping routes overlap with whale habitats. Yet the strikes are often underreported or even unnoticed. The magnitude of their impacts is unknown and difficult to study.
To reduce vessel strikes, BCWhales encourages boaters to be aware of local laws and best practices.
"(Moon’s) situation, a probable vessel strike leading to a fatal injury, highlights the impact that humans can have on whales and the urgent need for added protections so this does not continue happening," Currie said.
This story was reported from Detroit.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/heartbreaking-photos-show-whale-migrated-3000-miles-despite-broken-spine
| 2022-12-14T01:23:37
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en
| 0.97219
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IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Former University of Iowa President Willard “Sandy" Boyd, who led the campus for a dozen years including during the Vietnam War, died Tuesday, according to the university. He was 95.
The university declined to give a cause of death.
Boyd was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on March 29, 1927. He received bachelor of science in law and bachelor of laws degrees from the University of Minnesota, and a master of law and doctor of juridical science degrees from the University of Michigan.
After practicing law for two years in Minneapolis, he joined the University of Iowa law faculty in 1954. Boyd served as president at Iowa from 1969 to 1981, when he became president of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. He later returned to the UI as a law professor and served as interim president in 2002 and 2003.
The UI experienced tremendous growth during Boyd's time as president, with the construction of numerous buildings and increasing enrollment. He was also know for his handling of Vietnam War era student protests, which grew heated at times but did not result in violent riots or serious injuries.
“In large part, this was because Sandy maintained a high degree of presidential visibility at all times,” N. William Hines, dean emeritus of the College of Law, said in a obituary released by the university. “He kept in close contact with law enforcement officers, he regularly made himself available to hear the grievances of disgruntled students, and he recruited a group of trusted faculty volunteers to walk the campus to help keep the peace during the peak of the disorders."
Boyd is survived by his wife, Susan Kuehn Boyd, their three children and seven grandchildren.
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Former-University-of-Iowa-President-Boyd-dies-at-17652233.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:37
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| 0.984753
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WHL
All Times Local
Eastern Conference
Central Division
East Division
Western Conference
B.C. Division
U.S. Division
Note: Two points for a team winning in overtime or shootout; the team losing in overtime or shootout receives one which is registered in the OTL or SOL columns.
Saturday's results
Regina 5 Calgary 2
Saskatoon 9 Prince Albert 0
Portland 4 Seattle 3 (SO)
Brandon 2 Spokane 1
Lethbridge 4 Swift Current 3 (SO)
Medicine Hat 6 Moose Jaw 3
Red Deer 5 Edmonton 2
Tri-City 4 Prince George 3
Kamloops 6 Victoria 1
Vancouver 3 Kelowna 2 (OT)
Sunday's results
Calgary 5 Brandon 2
Winnipeg 6 Regina 1
Portland 4 Everett 2
Seattle 5 Vancouver 2
Tuesday's results
Spokane at Moose Jaw, 7 p.m.
Medicine Hat at Saskatoon, 7 p.m.
Prince George at Seattle, 7:05 p.m.
Wednesday's games
Kelowna at Swift Current, 7 p.m.
Spokane at Regina, 7 p.m.
Medicine Hat at Prince Albert, 7 p.m.
Edmonton at Lethbridge, 7 p.m.
Vancouver at Victoria, 7:05 p.m.
Tri-City at Everett, 7:05 p.m.
Friday's games
Winnipeg at Brandon, 7 p.m.
Spokane at Saskatoon, 7 p.m.
Regina at Moose Jaw, 7 p.m.
Red Deer at Medicine Hat, 7 p.m.
Kelowna at Lethbridge, 7 p.m.
Swift Current at Edmonton, 7 p.m.
Kamloops at Prince George, 7 p.m.
Tri-City at Victoria, 7:05 p.m.
Everett at Seattle, 7:05 p.m.
Portland at Vancouver, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday's games
Saskatoon at Regina, 7 p.m.
Spokane at Prince Albert, 7 p.m.
Brandon at Winnipeg, 7:05 p.m.
Swift Current at Red Deer, 7 p.m.
Kamloops at Prince George, 6 p.m.
Vancouver at Portland, 6 p.m.
Kelowna at Medicine Hat, 7 p.m.
Calgary at Lethbridge, 7 p.m.
Seattle at Everett, 6:05 p.m.
Tri-City at Victoria, 6:05 p.m.
Sunday's games
Edmonton at Calgary, 2 p.m.
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/HKO-WHL-Standings-17652264.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:38
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en
| 0.8629
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By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
Associated Press
HONOLULU (AP) — U.S. scientists declared Tuesday that two active Hawaii volcanoes — one where lava destroyed hundreds of homes in 2018 and another where lava recently stalled before reaching a crucial Big Island highway — have stopped erupting.
“Kilauea is no longer erupting,” the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said in a statement Tuesday, followed by a separate one saying, “Mauna Loa is no longer erupting.”
Alert levels for both volcanoes were reduced from watch to advisory.
Mauna Loa, the world’s largest volcano, began spewing molten rock Nov. 27 after being quiet for 38 years, drawing onlookers to take in the incandescent spectacle, and setting some nerves on edge early on among people who’ve lived through destructive eruptions.
It was Mauna Loa’s longest period of repose, said Ken Hon, the observatory’s scientist in charge.
Lava-viewers in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park enjoyed the added rare marvel of being able to see Mauna Loa’s smaller neighbor, Kilauea, erupting at the same time.
Kilauea had been erupting since September 2021. A 2018 Kilauea eruption destroyed more than 700 residences.
Mauna Loa lava didn’t pose a threat to any communities, but got within 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) of a major highway that connects the east and west sides of the island.
Hon called the two-week spectacle, which is a typical timespan for Mauna Loa, “my favorite eruption.”
“It was a beautiful eruption, and lots of people got to see it, and it didn’t take out any major infrastructure and most importantly, it didn’t affect anybody’s life,” he said at a briefing Tuesday.
Hawaii County Civil Defense Director Talmadge Magno said a one-way route that opened to manage traffic from throngs of people watching the lava would close Thursday.
Magno and other county officials had warned that slow-moving lava could force the closure of Saddle Road, also known as Route 200 or Daniel K. Inouye Highway. That prompted motorists to brace for upheaval from a closure that could add hours to commute times on alternate coastal routes.
“Whatever it is — luck, chance — this is probably the best situation that we could ask for from Mauna Loa,” Magno said.
For Native Hawaiians, volcanic eruptions have deep cultural and spiritual significance. During Mauna Loa’s eruption, many Hawaiians took part in cultural traditions, such as singing, chanting and dancing to honor Pele, the deity of volcanoes and fire, and leaving offerings known as “hookupu.”
Lava supply to a Mauna Loa fissure ceased on Saturday, the observatory said, and volcanic tremor and earthquakes associated with the eruption “greatly diminished.”
“Spots of incandescence may remain near the vent, along channels, and at the flow front for days or weeks as the lava flows cool,” the observatory’s activity summary said. “However, eruptive activity is not expected to return based on past eruptive behavior.”
Lava supply to Kilauea’s Halemaʻumaʻu lava lake ceased on Friday, the observatory said: “Potential remains for resumption of this eruption or initiation of a new eruption at or near the summit of Kilauea.”
The observatory will continue monitoring the volcanoes for signs of renewed activity.
Despite the definitive statements, Hon said there’s generally a three-month “cooling off” period before scientists consider the eruption over.
But there’s been no history of a Mauna Loa rift eruption pausing and restarting, he said, “So we feel pretty confident that this eruption has in fact, paused and is probably over.”
It was unclear what connection there could be to the volcanoes stopping their eruptions around the same time. The volcanoes can both be seen at the same time from multiple spots in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park near Kilauea’s caldera.
“So, Kilauea may have been diminishing already and the Mauna Loa eruption may have caused enough physical changes to stop it, or it may have just been headed to stop on its own,” Hon said. “So we don’t have a really good answer for that right now.”
Scientists will look at data to study the relationship between the two volcanoes, he said.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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https://wtmj.com/national/2022/12/13/scientists-declare-2-hawaii-volcanoes-have-stopped-erupting-4/
| 2022-12-14T01:23:40
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| 0.963364
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'I am in a tornado': Driver finds himself inside of storm in Grapevine
GRAPEVINE, Texas - At least 5 people were injured in the severe storms that hit Grapevine on Tuesday, and Blake Foster is lucky he's not one of them.
Foster took a video of himself driving through the city on Tuesday.
Foster can be heard saying the storm is "coming right across" the street, when suddenly debris starts rushing past his car.
"I'm in a tornado," Foster can be heard saying over the roar of the storm and debris smashing into his vehicle.
MORE STORM COVERAGE:
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- 5 injured as probable tornado hits businesses near Hwy. 114 in Grapevine
A trash can and umbrella can be seen hitting his car.
Once the storm slightly eases up Foster focuses on a car wash across the street which sustained serious damage.
Foster was not injured.
The National Weather Service is expected to survey the area to determine if the storm from Grapevine was a tornado and how strong the winds were.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/i-am-in-a-tornado-driver-finds-himself-inside-of-storm-in-grapevine
| 2022-12-14T01:23:43
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en
| 0.971685
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CAPE GIRARDEU, Mo. (AP) — A man has pleaded guilty to hate crime and arson charges for setting a fire that destroyed an Islamic center in southeast Missouri two years ago, the U.S. Justice Department announced Tuesday.
Nicholas John Proffitt, 44, entered the plea in the case of the torching of the Cape Girardeau Islamic Center on April 24, 2020, which was the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the department said. It was the second time he had attacked the building.
Security video showed Proffitt breaking the building's glass window and throwing two containers inside. He then entered, poured the contents of two gallon-size containers throughout the foyer and the hallway and lit the blaze, according to court records.
About a dozen people were inside at the time but escaped unharmed. The fire made the building unsuitable for use as a center.
Proffitt admitted he set the blaze because of the religious nature of the building, prosecutors said.
His public defender did not immediately return an after-hours phone call seeking comment.
Sentencing is set for May 22. Proffitt faces up to 20 years in prison for damage to religious property and a mandatory minimum of 10 years, consecutive to any other sentence, for using fire to commit a federal felony. He also could be fined up to $250,000 on each charge.
In 2009, Proffitt pleaded guilty to state charges for throwing rocks that damaged the same mosque and a vehicle in the parking lot. He was sentenced to three years in prison in that incident.
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Guilty-plea-on-hate-arson-charges-in-Islamic-17652270.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:43
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| 0.964293
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WEED, Calif. (AP) — A lumber company that owns a Northern California wood veneers manufacturing plant linked to a deadly fast-spreading blaze that killed two people and sent thousands fleeing for their lives has reached a settlement agreement with more than 700 people who filed wrongful death, personal injury, and property loss claims.
Roseburg Forest Products of Springfield, Ore. said in a statement Tuesday that it has agreed with four law firms representing the majority of claims stemming from the Mill Fire, which sparked on Sept. 2 near the small city of Weed near the California-Oregon border.
The terms and amount of each family’s settlement will remain confidential as part of the agreement, the company said.
“We know we can’t bring back loved ones nor the homes that were destroyed, but Roseburg’s substantial settlement offers, hopefully, will provide the resources for homeowners to rebuild their houses and the community,” said Pete Hillan, a Roseburg spokesperson.
The blaze quickly burned through homes, pushed by 35-mph (56-kph) winds. It eventually burned more than six square miles (15.5 square kilometers), destroyed 118 buildings and killed two people. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is still investigating the cause of the fire.
The company had a mediation last week with five law firms representing the majority of roughly 1,000 claimants related to the Mill Fire, Robert Julian, Roseburg’s lead attorney, told the Sacramento Bee.
Julian said the company hopes to reach settlements with all remaining claimants during a mediation scheduled for Thursday.
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/Lumber-mill-linked-to-deadly-blaze-settles-with-17652356.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:44
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en
| 0.966101
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Spain’s Queen Letizia was in Los Angeles on Tuesday where she celebrated the opening of a center that promotes the Spanish language and culture throughout the world.
Letizia Ortíz opened the West Coast’s first branch of the Cervantes Institute, which was founded by the Spanish government in 1991 to further the language and Hispanic culture internationally. The Los Angeles branch is now the seventh location of the institute in the United States.
Spanish is the second-most common language spoken in the U.S., after English, and is widely spoken in Los Angeles, where nearly 50% of the population is Hispanic or Latino. Letizia participated in a work meeting for the institute on Monday and presided over its inauguration Tuesday, according to a news release.
Letizia, a seasoned national television journalist, became princess upon marrying then-Prince Felipe — now King Felipe VI — in 2004. When King Juan Carlos abdicated 10 years later, she became the first woman without aristocratic blood to reach the throne of Spain. She turned 50 in September, prompting a look back at her position in a monarchy still reeling from scandals involving Juan Carlos.
Although Letizia is better known as a progressive feminist rather than a fervent monarchist, she is credited with playing a major role in Felipe’s decision to forge a new path and break ties with the palace’s corruption-linked past.
Spain’s king has a mostly ceremonial role. Executive power lies with the elected parliamentary government.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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https://wtmj.com/national/2022/12/13/spains-queen-letizia-visits-los-angeles-to-promote-language-2/
| 2022-12-14T01:23:46
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| 0.950349
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Idaho murder victim's family hires local attorney amid frustrations with police probe
MOSCOW, Idaho - The father of Idaho victim Kaylee Goncalves has hired a local attorney amid a souring relationship with police and concerns over missteps in the quadruple homicide probe.
The family recently retained Shanon Gray, of Gray Law Criminal Defense, whose cases have ranged from kidnappings to drunken driving arrests.
Gray, who began his career as a prosecutor in the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office, recently moved from Portland, Oregon, to Moscow, Idaho, Kaylee's father Steve Goncalves told Fox News Digital.
"I have a lawyer for a reason," Goncalves said in an exclusive interview Sunday. He added that he rarely communicates with police directly anymore. "They talk to my lawyer now," he added.
Gray also has a website called Wake Up Parents! in which he can be booked as an expert speaker on the pitfalls of social media.
"Mr. Gray has an extensive knowledge of the law and the effects of social media on juveniles and has made a vow to alert parents to the enormous amount of danger social media can expose to their children," the site says.
RELATED: Idaho police warn of 'criminal charges' for web sleuths engaged in 'harassing' amid 'misinformation'
The attorney will now be assisting Goncalves, who has publicly shared his frustration with the pace of the investigation into his daughter's murder, which has entered its fourth week without a suspect.
The grieving father told Fox News Digital in a Dec. 6 interview that he hoped an attorney could pressure police to disclose more details about the case.
Kaylee Goncalves, 21, her best friend Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were stabbed to death between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Nov. 13. Police have yet to publicly identify a suspect or recover the fixed-blade knife they believe was used in the attack.
Goncalves says he has also hired a private investigator in the hopes he can help solve the baffling murders.
The gumshoe is a former cop with 50 years of experience and an 87% success rate, according to Goncalves.
The Moscow Police Department, working alongside the Idaho State Police and the FBI, has struggled to deliver a cohesive message.
RELATED: Idaho murders: Father of slain victim says she had 'big open wounds,' calls police 'cowards'
Police initially said that they believed at least one of the victims was targeted before backtracking on the claim. The next day, they reversed course again, asserting that the attack was targeted.
"There seems to be confusion everywhere you look," Goncalves said during the Dec. 6 interview. "It's just absurd the kind of stuff that’s going on right now."
Goncalves' attorney didn't immediately responded to a request for comment. The Moscow Police Department didn't immediately return a request for comment.
RELATED: Idaho murders: Police say they're getting 'good tips' 4 weeks in despite lack of reward and suspect
The Moscow Police Department is asking that the public call in tips at 208-883-7180, email tipline@ci.moscow.id.us or submit digital media here.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/idaho-murder-victims-family-hires-local-attorney-amid-frustrations-with-police-probe
| 2022-12-14T01:23:49
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en
| 0.974203
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/HKO-WHL-Scoring-Ldrs-17652265.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:50
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en
| 0.946121
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DETROIT (AP) — A Saginaw man pleaded guilty to intimidating and attempting to intimidate people from speaking out and protesting in support of Black Lives Matter, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Kenneth Pilon, 61, entered the plea to two hate crime charges in federal district court, the Justice Department said. Pilon is due to be sentenced on March 23, 2023.
Pilon was accused of calling nine Starbucks stores in Michigan and telling the employees answering his calls to relay racial threats to Starbucks employees wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts. Pilon also threatened to kill Black people, prosecutors said.
Pilon also pleaded guilty to placing a noose inside a vehicle with an attached note reading: “An accessory to be worn with your ‘BLM’ t-shirt. Happy protesting!”
Pilon allegedly left the messages two days after Starbucks announced in 2020 that it would provide 250,000 Black Lives Matter T-shirts to employees who wanted to wear them during their shifts amid protests condemning the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
“The defendant also used a noose, a vile symbol of hatred and violence that harkens back to the Jim Crow era, to convey a threat of racial violence," Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a news release.
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/Man-admits-hate-crimes-for-Black-Lives-Matter-17652366.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:50
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en
| 0.957546
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By AMY BETH HANSON
Associated Press
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Zooey Zephyr worked behind the scenes during Montana’s 2021 legislative session to oppose an ultimately unsuccessful effort to ban transgender minors from receiving gender-affirming health care, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery.
When the 2023 session starts next month, she’ll face a similar challenge after a Republican lawmaker recently revealed he’ll run the proposal again. The move comes as GOP lawmakers nationwide are expected to continue to push for limits on transgender rights.
This time, though, Zephyr will have a seat at the table. And a vote.
Zephyr and SJ Howell are the first two openly transgender people to be elected to the Montana Legislature. They are among a record 10 transgender lawmakers who will be serving next year in state legislatures in Colorado, Delaware, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Vermont and Virginia, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund. The first openly transgender lawmaker in the United States took office in 2018.
It’s part of a larger movement in which LGBTQ people are being elected in record numbers. At least 519 LGBTQ candidates won elective office this year, in positions ranging from school board up to Congress and governor, according to the Victory Fund. In California, 10% of the legislature identifies as LGBTQ.
“My hope is that by being present there … that people will begin to understand what it means to be trans, what it means to be a trans adult and what it is we hope for for trans children,” Zephyr said. “That they get to live their life, that they don’t have to hide the way I had to hide, the way other trans adults from past generations had to bury themselves.”
Zephyr and Howell are both Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee, which could eventually hear a bill by Sen.-elect John Fuller, in which he again seeks to ban health care providers from treating transgender minors with puberty blockers, hormones or gender-affirming surgery.
Fuller’s proposed bill for the session that starts Jan. 2 is still being drafted in an effort “to make it unassailable,” he said.
Fuller introduced two bills in 2021 seeking to block medical providers from offering gender-affirming care to minors, but both failed.
He also sponsored a bill to prevent transgender women from competing on female sports teams. That measure was signed by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte, but a judge overturned the law as it applied to college students and it’s not believed to have affected any high school students, said Brian Michelotti, the executive director of the Montana High School Association.
Fuller said he’s bringing forward the medical care legislation again because “we know a lot more about the consequences of those things and we have a lot more information than we had two years ago.” Lawmakers, he said, want to protect children from the debilitating effects of “a lifetime medical dependency.”
He declined to cite any studies, but said he had a pile of them on his desk.
It’s not clear how the legislation might fare. While Republicans gained four seats in the Legislature and have a supermajority, not all Republicans supported the bills during the 2021 session. Fuller’s first effort failed narrowly in the House and his second bill passed the House before being killed in the Senate.
Opponents of the proposal also have more research backing their arguments that gender-affirming medical care saves the lives of children suffering from gender dysphoria — the sense of unease that a person might have because their biological sex does not match their gender identity.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health said this year that it believed treatment could begin earlier than previously recommended, with some patients beginning hormone therapy as young as age 14 and some surgical procedures starting as young as 15 and 17.
Transgender rights and medical treatment for transgender minors are highly charged issues around the country, leading to threats and violence.
The Montana bill comes as Arkansas, Alabama and Arizona have all passed legislation to ban gender-affirming medical care for minors. The Arkansas and Alabama laws have been subject to legal challenges.
A Texas judge has temporarily blocked a law that would have allowed the state to investigate parents for child abuse if their minor children received transgender medical care.
Fuller rejects the idea that his legislation means he hates the LGBTQ community. Instead, in a letter to the editor of the Daily Inter Lake, he said his proposal is meant “to protect children from being spayed, neutered and mutilated.”
Zephyr said legislation like Fuller’s, whether intended or not, “legitimizes” attacks against trans people.
“The far-right influencers who do want to paint LGBTQ people as pedophiles and groomers, they use this legislation as a way to amplify that violent rhetoric, which is exactly what drives the violence we’ve seen rising across the country, and events like Club Q,” Zephyr said.
Zephyr was referencing a recent shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in which five people were killed. The suspect has been charged with murder and hate crimes.
Montana lawmakers may also consider other bills that affect transgender residents.
Republican Rep. Braxton Mitchell has proposed a bill to forbid minors from attending drag shows and ban drag story hours in libraries, daycare facilities, pre-K or after-school programs, according to emails Mitchell sent to legislative staff.
For her part, Zephyr plans to introduce two bills to protect the LGBTQ community — one would ban the “gay/trans panic” defense as a legal defense in Montana and another would protect the right of transgender people to adopt children.
The gay/trans panic defense asks jurors to find that a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity is to blame for the defendant’s violent reaction that led to the criminal charges, according to the American Bar Association. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia ban the use of such a defense, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a Colorado-based think tank.
Montana has protections allowing gays and lesbians to adopt children, but does not have specific protections for trans folks, Zephyr said.
Jason Pierceson, a professor at the University of Illinois-Springfield, whose expertise includes gender and politics, said legislation attacking the LGBTQ community is “really an attempt by the religious right and tied to the Republican Party to erase trans people from public life, to enact policies erasing all kinds of legal protections and in some ways trying to erase them more fundamentally from society.”
Zephyr and Howell’s presence in the Montana Legislature could help make a difference, he said.
“We know that representation like this matters in state legislatures,” Pierceson said, “particularly for expanding lesbian and gay rights.
Zephyr said she hopes to work with moderate Republicans “to help push back against what are extreme and dangerous attacks — attacks that deny trans people lifesaving medication.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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https://wtmj.com/national/2022/12/13/transgender-lawmaker-hopes-her-presence-brings-understanding/
| 2022-12-14T01:23:52
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en
| 0.963343
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Idaho murders: Cops take hours of video from gas station after clerk spots white car on night of stabbings
MOSCOW, Idaho - Detectives collected eight hours of surveillance video Tuesday morning from a gas station in Moscow where a clerk saw a white sedan passing by at 3:45 a.m. on the night of the unsolved stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, according store workers.
An overnight assistant manager told Fox News Digital that she's been reviewing the tapes a little bit at a time over the past few days, looking for clues in her downtime on the graveyard shift. She said she was not working on the night of the murders.
Monday night, she said, she reached the 3 o'clock hour and spotted the car. She said she took a picture of the screen and sent it to an email address police set up to receive tips.
"I had a weird feeling to go get on the cameras," she said, asking that her name not be publicized out of safety concerns as the suspect remains at large.
The car drove by "real quick," she said, and turned down a side street off Highway 8.
RELATED: Idaho murders: Group spotted walking in background of bodycam video taken near crime scene at 3 a.m.
Last week, police said they were looking to speak with the occupants of a white Hyundai Elantra who may have information on the slayings of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, and Xana Kernodle, 20. The three women lived together at the home and Chapin, who was dating Kernodle, spent the night over.
Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, along with the women's two other roommates in Kaylee Goncalves' final Instagram post, shared the day before the slayings. (@kayleegoncalves/Instagram)
Police have said they believe anyone in the Elantra may have "critical information to share" in the case.
RELATED: Idaho murders: Father of slain victim says she had 'big open wounds,' calls police 'cowards'
Investigators arrived Tuesday morning around 11 a.m. and collected the video.
The store manager said that the officers identified themselves as state detectives and took a whole shift's worth of video.
RELATED: Idaho police warn of 'criminal charges' for web sleuths engaged in 'harassing' amid 'misinformation'
Asked if they'd found anything substantial as they left the building, one responded, "Not yet."
The clerk also provided this timestamp that she was shows where she found the white car on surveillance video on Nov. 13. (Fox News Digital)
Police say a white 2011 to 2013 Hyundai Elantra was seen near the victims' home around the time of the slayings.
The detectives went directly to the police station after leaving the gas station, and it was too soon for investigators to comment on the contents of the video.
RELATED: Idaho murders: Police search for white Hyundai Elantra near murder scene
Robbie Johnson, a police spokeswoman, said police continue to seek help from the public. No suspects have been publicly identified or taken into custody.
"If you saw anything that night that looks strange…anything you have to report, even if you don’t think it’s anything, we’re still encouraging people to send that in," she said. "When we get that information, even it's small, sometimes it can piece together the timeline, put those puzzle pieces together, and we get a greater, bigger picture of what was going on."
The Moscow Police Department is asking that the public call in tips at 208-883-7180, email tipline@ci.moscow.id.us or submit digital media here.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/idaho-murders-cops-take-hours-of-video-from-gas-station-after-clerk-spots-white-car-on-night-of-stabbings
| 2022-12-14T01:23:56
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| 0.9687
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WHL
All Times Local
Eastern Conference
Central Division
East Division
Western Conference
B.C. Division
U.S. Division
Note: Two points for a team winning in overtime or shootout; the team losing in overtime or shootout receives one which is registered in the OTL or SOL columns.
Saturday's results
Regina 5 Calgary 2
Saskatoon 9 Prince Albert 0
Portland 4 Seattle 3 (SO)
Brandon 2 Spokane 1
Lethbridge 4 Swift Current 3 (SO)
Medicine Hat 6 Moose Jaw 3
Red Deer 5 Edmonton 2
Tri-City 4 Prince George 3
Kamloops 6 Victoria 1
Vancouver 3 Kelowna 2 (OT)
Sunday's results
Calgary 5 Brandon 2
Winnipeg 6 Regina 1
Portland 4 Everett 2
Seattle 5 Vancouver 2
Tuesday's results
Spokane at Moose Jaw, 7 p.m.
Medicine Hat at Saskatoon, 7 p.m.
Prince George at Seattle, 7:05 p.m.
Wednesday's games
Kelowna at Swift Current, 7 p.m.
Spokane at Regina, 7 p.m.
Medicine Hat at Prince Albert, 7 p.m.
Edmonton at Lethbridge, 7 p.m.
Vancouver at Victoria, 7:05 p.m.
Tri-City at Everett, 7:05 p.m.
Friday's games
Winnipeg at Brandon, 7 p.m.
Spokane at Saskatoon, 7 p.m.
Regina at Moose Jaw, 7 p.m.
Red Deer at Medicine Hat, 7 p.m.
Kelowna at Lethbridge, 7 p.m.
Swift Current at Edmonton, 7 p.m.
Kamloops at Prince George, 7 p.m.
Tri-City at Victoria, 7:05 p.m.
Everett at Seattle, 7:05 p.m.
Portland at Vancouver, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday's games
Saskatoon at Regina, 7 p.m.
Spokane at Prince Albert, 7 p.m.
Brandon at Winnipeg, 7:05 p.m.
Swift Current at Red Deer, 7 p.m.
Kamloops at Prince George, 6 p.m.
Vancouver at Portland, 6 p.m.
Kelowna at Medicine Hat, 7 p.m.
Calgary at Lethbridge, 7 p.m.
Seattle at Everett, 6:05 p.m.
Tri-City at Victoria, 6:05 p.m.
Sunday's games
Edmonton at Calgary, 2 p.m.
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/HKO-WHL-Standings-17652264.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:56
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| 0.8629
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Two men and a pet dog were rescued from a sailboat without power or fuel more than 200 miles off Delaware, 10 days after friends and relatives had last heard from them, the U.S. Coast Guard said Tuesday.
Kevin Hyde, 65, and Joe Ditomasso, 76, were sailing from Cape May, New Jersey, to Marathon, Florida. But they disappeared after their Atrevida II sailboat left North Carolina's Outer Banks on Dec. 3.
The Coast Guard was notified Sunday that the two sailors were overdue and launched a search that would stretch from Florida to New Jersey, the agency said. Coast Guard cutters and aircraft participated in the search along with ships from the U.S. Navy and commercial and recreational vessels.
On Tuesday, Hyde and Ditomasso waived their arms to draw the attention of the crew of the Silver Muna tanker ship off Delaware's coast, the Coast Guard said.
The sailboat's lack of fuel or power rendered its radios and navigation equipment inoperable, according to the Coast Guard.
The men and the dog were brought aboard the tanker shortly after 4 p.m. An evaluation by the ship's medical staff revealed no immediate concerns, the Coast Guard said.
The two men will stay aboard Silver Muna until it arrives in New York, where the Coast Guard will evaluate them further and reunite them with their family and friends.
“This is an excellent example of the maritime community’s combined efforts to ensure safety of life at sea,” Daniel Schrader, a Coast Guard spokesman said in a statement.
Cmdr. Schrader also stressed the importance of sailors traveling with what's commonly known as an “EPIRB” or Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. It allows people on a boat to immediately make contact with first responders in an emergency.
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/Men-and-dog-missing-for-10-days-found-on-17652239.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:57
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en
| 0.973124
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LUSAIL, Qatar (AP) — Lionel Messi bent over, clutched his left hamstring and appeared to grimace, immediately spreading panic through the soccer world but especially among all Argentines.
Was their superstar — their idol — injured? Was he going to have to come off early in the World Cup semifinals?
No such luck for Croatia.
Before long, Messi was producing perhaps the best performance of his record-tying 25 appearances at the World Cup, leading Argentina to a 3-0 victory over Croatia on Tuesday that set up a meeting with either France or Morocco in Sunday’s final.
Messi is back in soccer's biggest match on his mission to win the game's greatest prize for the first time. At 35, he could hardly be playing any better.
Messi converted a penalty and played a part in the other two goals by Julián Álvarez — one with an outrageous piece of skill that brought roars of approval from Argentina's huge following — to turn an initially tense occasion into a procession.
“A lot is going through my head — it’s very emotional seeing all of this,” Messi said in a post-match interview on the field as he looked up at Argentina’s celebrating, scarf-waving supporters. “To see the fans — ‘the family’ — during the whole tournament was so incredible. We’re going to the final, which is what we wanted.”
It will be Messi’s second World Cup final — Argentina lost the other one to Germany in 2014 — in what might be his last appearance at the tournament.
The stage is set for a player widely regarded as one of the game’s best, if not the absolute best, to go out on the ultimate high.
He is thrilling his legion of fans along the way.
His swivel and driving run to set up the third goal for Álvarez in the 69th minute left Josko Gvardiol — one of the best defenders at the World Cup — grasping at thin air and epitomized Messi's confidence and swagger.
He is embracing the responsibility of leading Argentina to its third World Cup title, scoring in five of his six games in Qatar.
He even had a penalty saved in the one game in which he didn’t score.
“I am honored to train him and see him play,” said Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni, who was in tears in the post-match celebrations. “Every time you see him play, it’s a huge source of motivation for his teammates, fans and the whole world.”
Croatia failed in its bid to reach a second straight World Cup final after conceding two goals in a five-minute span from the 34th, just when the team was looking comfortable at Lusail Stadium and Messi was raising concerns by rubbing his hamstring.
Maybe it was a ruse. Messi was soon toying with his opponents in a way only he can and put Argentina ahead by lifting his penalty into the top corner after Álvarez was taken out by Dominik Livakovic after clipping the ball past the Croatia goalkeeper.
Álvarez scored himself in the 39th after a surging run from halfway, which started after he collected Messi's short pass. Then came the crowning moment, Álvarez's second goal, after Messi took Gvardiol for a ride in the right corner.
It was one game too far for Croatia, which had beaten Japan and Brazil on penalties in the knockout stage, and star midfielder Luka Modric, who — at 37 — has likely played his final World Cup match.
Summing up a frustrating game for the little midfield magician, he was substituted in the 81st minute and had a bright red nose after the ball slammed into his face moments earlier.
“The first goal took the match in a different direction,” Croatia coach Zlatko Dalić said. “It’s the true Messi we all expected to see.”
Argentina maintained its record of never having lost in the World Cup semifinals and has reached the final for the sixth time.
Those dark days after losing to Saudi Arabia in its opening group match seem so long ago now for Argentina, which will be hard to stop in the final with Messi playing this well.
“Even though we lost our first match, we were confident that this group was going to push forward,” Messi said. "We know what we are, and we called on the fans to believe in us.”
MESSI RECORDS
Messi became Argentina’s record scorer at World Cups with his third penalty of the tournament taking him to 11 goals in total — one more than Gabriel Batistuta. He also tied the record for most appearances at the World Cup by playing for the 25th time, the same number as Lothar Matthäus of Germany.
ALVAREZ
The 22-year-old Álvarez didn’t start the tournament as Argentina’s striker. He only took the place of Lautaro Martinez in the third group game and now has four goals, one behind Messi and Mbappé. He is the youngest player to score twice in a World Cup semifinal match since a 17-year-old Pele scored a hat trick in 1958.
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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
___
AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/Messi-Argentina-beat-Croatia-3-0-to-reach-World-17651809.php
| 2022-12-14T01:23:57
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| 0.980644
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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Time now for StoryCorps. Next week is the 10th anniversary of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. A gunman killed six educators and 20 children, including Jeremy Richman and Jennifer Hensel's 6-year-old daughter Avielle. In 2017, Jeremy and Jennifer talked at StoryCorps. Jennifer wanted us to share that conversation.
JENNIFER HENSEL: Avielle was not supposed to be in school that day. We had already made plans to go to New York City to see the Rockettes. But they were building gingerbread houses in the classroom that day, and she really wanted to go. I remember my phone rang with the emergency alert from the schools.
JEREMY RICHMAN: It was just chaos trying to figure out what was going on.
HENSEL: I remember just searching and searching for her.
RICHMAN: We organized a list for families that couldn't find their kids. There was 29 or so on there. They found a couple more kids that had ran, so that made it 26. And then it just stayed at 26. And so then I knew.
HENSEL: You grabbed my shoulders, and you looked me in the face and said, I need to tell you this before you hear it from someone else. Avielle is probably dead. And I said, I can't leave until I see her. I'm her mom, and that's my job. I have to see her.
RICHMAN: What do you miss most about Avi?
HENSEL: The weight of her arms on my body when she's hugging me and her cheeks. It was hard for months. And it's turned into years, and it's hard all the time.
RICHMAN: I'm always thinking about this, every waking moment and a lot of times while I'm sleeping, that - it's always there. Right away, we were sure we were going to find some way that we could have kids again. And...
HENSEL: And now we have two.
RICHMAN: What are your biggest fears about raising them?
HENSEL: Even though it's statistically not probable, I fear that they will be shot. But I've never really been ruled by fear. I will do my best to give them the tools to not live in fear. And I love you.
RICHMAN: I love you too.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTIN: Jennifer Hensel and Jeremy Richman recall their daughter, Avielle Richman, killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Just over a year after this conversation was recorded, Jeremy Richman died by suicide. He was 49.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. This conversation will be archived at the Library of Congress. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/2022-12-09/parents-remember-their-6-year-old-daughter-who-died-at-sandy-hook
| 2022-12-14T01:23:57
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| 0.982652
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By MARK THIESSEN
Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska lawmaker may be unfit to hold office because he’s a member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group that has either advocated for or engaged in concrete action to overthrow the U.S. government, a lawyer said Tuesday in opening arguments for a case against state Rep. David Eastman.
“We are going to present overwhelming evidence on both those elements,” said Goriune Dudukgian, a lawyer with an Anchorage civil rights law firm. Dudukgian represents Randall Kowalke, a Wasilla resident whose lawsuit seeks to disqualify Eastman from holding office.
The bench trial before Superior Court Judge Jack McKenna will determine whether Eastman, a Wasilla Republican, will be allowed to be seated in the Legislature next month after winning reelection last month. McKenna earlier ordered the state Division of Elections not to certify the results of the race pending an outcome in this case.
Kowalke’s lawsuit points to a provision in the Alaska Constitution stating that no one who “advocates, or who aids or belongs to any party or organization or association which advocates, the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United States or of the State shall be qualified to hold” public office.
Stewart Rhodes, a founder of the Oath Keepers, and Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs were convicted last month of seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol for what prosecutors called a violent plot to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory. They were among 33 Oath Keepers charged after the insurrection, Dudukgian said.
Eastman, represented by attorney Joe Miller, has admitted to being in Washington, D.C., that day, but only to witness an address from then-President Donald Trump that preceded the attack on the Capitol.
Eastman said he did not take part in the riot, and that he has not been accused of any crime.
Miller did not give opening arguments Tuesday, and chose to deliver those before he presents the defense’s case.
Eastman is a member of the Oath Keepers and has contributed more than $1,000 in support of the group, Dudukgian said.
“And even after the events of the Jan. 6 insurrection and the recent conviction of founder Stewart Rhodes, he still has not taken any steps to resign his membership or renounce his membership, either publicly or privately,” Dudukgian said.
He said they would present evidence that the Oath Keepers combined extremist rhetoric about the insurrection with seditious conduct, and claimed the group would fight either with or without Trump’s support.
“And on Jan. 6, they did exactly what they said they were going to do,” Dudukgian said, later adding: “They had a singular purpose, which was to stop the transfer of presidential power.”
Dudukgian’s first two witnesses were to be experts on terrorism who have studied the Oath Keepers extensively.
Miller objected to the plaintiff’s selection of experts, saying they should only bring in people who could testify to the facts of the case.
“They would have subpoenaed, for example, various Oath Keepers, they would have subpoenaed people that had actually witnessed what happened on Jan. 6 or any other individual that had evidence that they believe relevant to the ultimate issue in the case, and that is whether or not the Oath Keepers is, in fact, an organization that advocates by force of violence the overthrow of the government,” Miller said.
McKenna said he agreed with Miller that as a general proposition, an expert cannot be used as a conduit for hearsay, but he said he needs to see the evidence and hear the testimony before deciding on Miller’s standing objection.
Eastman, who sat with Miller in a Palmer courtroom, is on a list of witnesses that Miller plans to call, along with Oath Keepers members.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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https://wtmj.com/national/2022/12/13/trial-starts-alaska-lawmaker-with-oath-keepers-ties/
| 2022-12-14T01:23:59
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| 0.969015
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Idaho murders: Group spotted walking in background of bodycam video taken near crime scene at 3 a.m.
MOSCOW, Idaho - Several people can be seen walking in the background of police bodycam video taken near the King Road home where four University of Idaho students were killed in their sleep on Nov. 13 and around the same time.
Plainclothes officers made an unrelated stop of three University of Idaho students for suspected underage drinking at about 2:50 a.m. Nov. 13 as they were walking across a field off Taylor Avenue in between the Sigma Chi frat house and the girls’ rental home.
The group was stopped about one-tenth of a mile from the off-campus rental, where Madison Mogen, 21, her best friend Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, and his girlfriend Xana Kernodle, 20, were brutally stabbed to death between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.
The three women lived together, and Chapin, who lived about 200 yards away at Sigma Chi, was staying over.
IDAHO MURDERS: POLICE RELEASE BODYCAM VIDEO FROM NIGHT OF KILLINGS
Screengrab from police video, zoomed in and highlighted. (Moscow Police)
Police have previously said investigators found nothing of evidentiary value in the bodycam videos – but it remains unclear whether they have identified or interviewed the people walking. Fox News Digital asked about the images on multiple occasions beginning Saturday and has not yet received a response.
Online sleuths spotted the group of figures, who can be seen walking near the intersection of King Road and Taylor Avenue, two houses down from the crime scene.
Olivia Vitale, a true crime vlogger with more than a million followers on TikTok, went viral Saturday with the details. She said she believes someone walking with the group may have information that could help investigators.
"During the timeframe of the murders, there were people in the general vicinity," she told Fox News Digital.
"Between the people with law enforcement and the people in the background of the body cam footage, that is about half a dozen people. The importance is they may have witnessed something unbeknownst to them"
The bodycam is stamped 3:12 a.m. Police have previously maintained that they believe the murders took place between 3 and 4 that morning.
A view of Taylor Avenue, which intersects with the King Road street two doors down from the scene of a quadruple homicide just steps off the University of Idaho campus. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
IDAHO MURDERS: CONVICTED KILLER ARRESTED A MILE FROM UNIVERSITY STABBINGS
Police have previously asked the public to avoid speculation and misinformation and warned that people who harass or threaten "potentially involved parties" could face criminal consequences.
However the development has the potential to help investigators in the case, according to experts.
"If they haven’t yet, they need to locate them ASAP," Pat Diaz, a former Miami-Dade homicide detective turned private investigator, told Fox News Digital. "That is a great lead. Someone knows something."
With the FBI’s assistance in the case, and the known presence of the two plainclothes officers, investigators can narrow down cell tower data to reveal which phones were in the area at the same time, according to Joseph Giacalone, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a retired NYPD sergeant.
UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO STUDENTS KILLED: A TIMELINE OF EVENTS
"They can see what phone numbers are attached to a specific cell site," he told Fox News Digital.
"Since we know there are two cops standing there who probably have cell phones, they can narrow down other people within that general vicinity."
The technology requires a subpoena or a search warrant.
A split photo showing the crime scene and the victims, including University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21. (Angela Palermo/Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service via Getty Images/Inst
Fox News Digital has also asked police whether any search warrants have been served outside the of King Road house and whether authorities have zeroed-in on any unnamed persons of interest.
"That is not information that is being released at this time," Robbie Johnson, a spokeswoman for the investigation, said Saturday. Separately, she said that certain details were being kept confidential to preserve the integrity of the investigation.
In a video statement Monday, Moscow Police Capt. Roger Lanier said investigators were combing through "hours and hours and hours" of video in the case.
IDAHO MURDERS: POLICE SAY THEY'RE GETTING ‘GOOD TIPS’ 4 WEEKS IN DESPITE LACK OF REWARD AND SUSPECT
"Those videos are from all over town gas stations and specifically the area around King Road," he said. "It does take a lot of time."
He said investigators have conducted interviews and re-interviewed some parties as they continue to process new tips.
"We have literally an army of analysts who have been sorting through videos that have been submitted through the FBI.gov Moscow upload site," he said.
The belongings of the victims of the Univeristy of Idaho quadruple homicide are removed from the house in Moscow, Idaho, Wednesday, December 7, 2022. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
As police continue the hunt for a suspect, they are urging students and local residents to exercise caution.
"We should be vigilant now, but we should make that a way of life for us," Lanier said. "We should always be walking with our head up, sticking to lighted paths and walking in groups if we can – and in addition, letting people know when you've arrived home, if you have not made prior arrangements."
Last week, police asked the public for help finding the occupant or occupants of a white 2011 to 2013 Hyundai Elantra also seen near the victims' home around the time of the slayings.
Police say anyone in the Elantra may have "critical information to share" in the case.
The tip line can be reached at 208-883-7180 or by email to tipline@ci.moscow.id.us. Digital Media can be submitted at fbi.gov/moscowidaho.
As Fox News Digital reported early Monday, Goncalves' family is also raising funds to offer a reward for information that cracks the case.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/idaho-murders-group-spotted-walking-in-background-of-bodycam-video
| 2022-12-14T01:24:02
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en
| 0.964702
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WEED, Calif. (AP) — A lumber company that owns a Northern California wood veneers manufacturing plant linked to a deadly fast-spreading blaze that killed two people and sent thousands fleeing for their lives has reached a settlement agreement with more than 700 people who filed wrongful death, personal injury, and property loss claims.
Roseburg Forest Products of Springfield, Ore. said in a statement Tuesday that it has agreed with four law firms representing the majority of claims stemming from the Mill Fire, which sparked on Sept. 2 near the small city of Weed near the California-Oregon border.
The terms and amount of each family’s settlement will remain confidential as part of the agreement, the company said.
“We know we can’t bring back loved ones nor the homes that were destroyed, but Roseburg’s substantial settlement offers, hopefully, will provide the resources for homeowners to rebuild their houses and the community,” said Pete Hillan, a Roseburg spokesperson.
The blaze quickly burned through homes, pushed by 35-mph (56-kph) winds. It eventually burned more than six square miles (15.5 square kilometers), destroyed 118 buildings and killed two people. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is still investigating the cause of the fire.
The company had a mediation last week with five law firms representing the majority of roughly 1,000 claimants related to the Mill Fire, Robert Julian, Roseburg’s lead attorney, told the Sacramento Bee.
Julian said the company hopes to reach settlements with all remaining claimants during a mediation scheduled for Thursday.
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Lumber-mill-linked-to-deadly-blaze-settles-with-17652356.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:02
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| 0.966101
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SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday that she is commuting the sentences of all of the state's 17 inmates awaiting execution, saying all of their death sentences will be changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Brown, who has less than a month remaining in office, said she was using her executive clemency powers to commute the sentences and that her order will take effect on Wednesday.
“I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people — even if a terrible crime placed them in prison," Brown said in a statement.
Oregon has not executed a prisoner since 1997. In Brown's first news conference after she became governor in 2015, the Democrat announced she would continue a moratorium on the death penalty imposed by her predecessor, former Gov. John Kitzhaber.
So far, 17 people have been executed in the U.S. in 2022, all by lethal injection and all in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Missouri and Alabama, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Like Oregon, some other states are moving away from the death penalty.
In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019 and shut down the state’s execution chamber at San Quentin. A year ago, he moved to dismantle America's largest death row by moving all condemned inmates to other prisons within two years.
In Oregon, Brown is known for exercising her authority to grant clemency.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Brown granted clemency to nearly 1,000 people convicted of crimes. Two district attorneys, along with family members of crime victims, sued the governor and other state officials to stop the clemency actions. But the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled in August that she acted within her authority.
The prosecutors, in particular, objected to Brown’s decision to allow 73 people convicted of murder, assault, rape and manslaughter while they were younger than 18 to apply for early release.
Brown noted that previously she granted commutations “to individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary growth and rehabilitation” but said that assessment didn't apply in her latest decision.
“This commutation is not based on any rehabilitative efforts by the individuals on death row,” Brown said. “Instead, it reflects the recognition that the death penalty is immoral. It is an irreversible punishment that does not allow for correction.”
The Oregon Department of Corrections announced in May 2020 it was phasing out its death row and reassigning those inmates to other special housing units or general population units at the state penitentiary in Salem and other state prisons.
A list of inmates with death sentences provided by the governor's office had 17 names.
But the state Department of Corrections' website lists 21 names. One of those prisoners, however, had his death sentence overturned by the Oregon Supreme Court in 2021 because the crime he committed was no longer eligible for the death penalty under a 2019 law.
Officials in the governor's office and the corrections department did not immediately respond to an attempt to reconcile the lists.
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/Oregon-governor-commutes-death-sentences-to-life-17652334.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:03
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| 0.973586
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Updated December 11, 2022 at 2:49 PM ET
The last time Rupert Murdoch testified about a scandal involving his company, it played out in public. He sought to convey contrition about the monstrous activities that had come to light inside one of his newsrooms while skirting any responsibility for it.
"This is the most humble day in my life," Murdoch testified before the British Parliament in 2011, interrupting the opening statement of his son James — then his heir apparent — to do so.
Others had "let me down," Rupert Murdoch added, intoning, "It's time for them to pay."
In front of MPs and, later, a judicial inquiry, Murdoch mumbled. He said he couldn't hear, playing up his age. (Murdoch was then in his early 80s.) He occasionally went on the attack — only to express regret. He said — again and again and again — that he simply couldn't recall what he had once known of the operations of his beloved London newspapers.
Oh, and Murdoch took a cream pie to the face. (His then third wife, and now third ex-wife, Wendi Deng, fended off the assailant.)
Starting Tuesday, the now 91-year-old media magnate will again have to face the music over a scandal at one of his most prized news organizations — this time, Fox News.
Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News and Fox Corp, which is its parent company, after an array of Fox hosts and guests promoted false claims that Dominion threw votes from then-President Donald Trump to Joe Biden in the 2020 elections.
Attorneys for Dominion privately questioned Murdoch's elder son Lachlan, the Fox Corp boss, under oath for hours at a powerful Los Angeles law firm last Monday. (Lachlan is James' older brother.)
The company is seeking to find proof Lachlan Murdoch knew that the claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential elections were false and that he encouraged or simply allowed them to be broadcast anyway on Fox News, his family's dominant profit engine.
Fox says it was covering an inherently newsworthy claim from inherently newsworthy sources — a sitting president and his campaign attorneys. The network contends the lawsuit is an affront to free speech.
Dominion accuses Fox of destroying messages from stars Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and others
In fresh court filings Wednesday, Dominion's attorneys accused Fox of destroying evidence from some of its most important figures: Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott, top stars Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, along with other stars, network executives and sources, presumably related to the claims of election fraud.
Dominion is asking a special master in the case, who is aiding the Delaware judge overseeing the discovery process in the lawsuit, to issue an order finding "that Fox acted recklessly or with the intent to deprive Dominion of the spoliated information's use in the trial."
The company asked for sanctions against Fox and its attorneys, which would include covering legal fees and directing the jury in the upcoming trial, scheduled for April, that it must presume the evidence would have hurt Fox's defense.
Fox has already accused senior Dominion executives, including its CEO, of destroying private electronic messages relevant to the case. That claim has not yet been addressed by the court. Fox News declined to comment on the allegation that it had destroyed any evidence.
With his father, Lachlan leads the family's media empire, which also includes News Corp., owner of the Wall Street Journal and New York Post. Rupert, however, is the patriarch of the family, and looms above its corporate holdings, with the title of chairman. And now Dominion wants to see what it can secure from the elder Murdoch.
Reporters from both the Journal and Fox repeatedly debunked Trump's claims; editorials in the New York Post and the Journal called on Trump to concede his loss.
Dominion lawyers want to show that the Murdochs had every reason to know they should prevent their stars from promoting such false claims of fraud and yet did not do so — the heart of their claim that the alleged defamation was orchestrated from the top.
The News of the World scandal threatened Murdoch's hold on media empire
Back in 2011, a separate scandal flushed Rupert Murdoch into public view on the other side of the Atlantic. The News of the World, the British Sunday tabloid that had helped to propel Murdoch's global expansion decades ago, had been caught hacking into the voice mails and emails of hundreds of royals, celebrities, politicians, war veterans and more. It all came crashing down when The Guardian revealed a murdered 13-year-old schoolgirl had been among them.
The repercussions were far-reaching. There was a movement to push him out as chief executive over the entire media empire. Several of his former British journalists were sentenced to jail. Murdoch shut the paper down (soon replacing it with a Sunday edition of his Sun tabloid). He split his newspapers from his television properties, and ultimately was compelled to abandon his $15 billion bid for total control of the British satellite TV giant, Sky.
Called before Parliament and a judicial inquiry in 2011 and 2012, however, his years-long pursuit for Sky still hanging in the balance, Murdoch knew he had two jobs: to convey that this press baron was chastened, not arrogant. And to deflect any notion that he had any culpability for what had happened.
He managed to execute the job in a way that cut off his younger son, James, at the knees. The judgment of James, at that time the chairman of the Murdochs' News UK, had been called into question, especially for approving a $1 million settlement to a former executive of a soccer players association whose phone had been hacked into by private investigators for News of the World. James Murdoch had previously said he hadn't read down far enough into an email trail to realize how damning — or illegal — the paper's actions had been.
As Rupert and James sat before a parliamentary committee, the younger man set out to apologize to the victims of illegal phone hacking and to explain how he intended to set the British newspaper group back on an honorable footing.
The father interrupted the son almost instantly, putting his hand on James's arm.
"Before we get to that, I would just like to say one sentence," Rupert Murdoch interjected. "This is the most humble day of my life."
(That line had been scripted for Murdoch ahead of time by his advisers, including senior figures from the PR giants Edelman and Rubenstein Associates, though they had not realized he would interrupt his son to offer it.)
A notoriously hands-on CEO seeks to explain "laxity"
In so doing, Rupert Murdoch made it clear the company remained his, though not the responsibility. "This is not as an excuse, maybe it's an explanation of my laxity," he testified. "The News of the World is less than 1 percent of our company. I employ 53,000 people around the world who are proud and great and ethical and distinguished people."
Blame should fall, he said, on "the people that I trusted to run it, and then maybe the people they trusted."
"I'm the best person to clean this up," he said.
Murdoch was not known for laxity — he was a notoriously involved CEO, especially with his tabloids.
Before the committee, and again in questioning during a judicial review, Murdoch downplayed his vaunted political influence, and suggested he simply could not recall details of his interactions with editors and with leading political figures, including prime ministers.
On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, lawyers for Dominion are scheduled to grill Murdoch privately, this time about events leading up to and following the November 2020 elections. He will be asked once more about his interactions with news executives and journalists, this time at Fox News, and politicians, this time, then President Donald Trump and his advisers.
Rupert Murdoch is a decade older. His hearing is far from perfect. But associates say, when it comes to news and politics, the media mogul hasn't lost a step.
Maddy Lauria contributed to this story.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/2022-12-09/rupert-murdochs-turn-to-face-questions-in-1-6-billion-lawsuit-against-fox-news
| 2022-12-14T01:24:03
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By STAN CHOE, DAMIAN J. TROISE and ALEX VEIGA
AP Business Writers
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks on Wall Street finished higher Tuesday after a report showed inflation cooled more than expected last month, cementing expectations that the Federal Reserve is about to dial down the size of its interest rate hikes.
The encouraging inflation data raised hopes for easing pressure on the economy ahead of an interest rate policy update on Wednesday from the Fed. Stocks initially surged, driving the Dow Jones Industrial Average more than 700 points higher, but then pared their gains as analysts cautioned investors not to get carried away by hopes for an easier Fed, as they have in the past.
The S&P 500 ended 0.7% higher. An early-morning burst of 2.8% nearly vanished by lunchtime. It had already climbed 1.4% a day earlier, with much of that gain coming in the last hour of trading on anticipation of the inflation data.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average flipped briefly to a loss before ending 0.3% higher, while the Nasdaq composite rose 1% after shedding most of a 3.8% gain.
The source of all the action was data showing that U.S. inflation slowed to 7.1% last month from 7.7% in October and more than 9% in the summer. Even though inflation remains painfully high, and shoppers continue to pay prices well above levels from a year ago, Tuesday’s report offers hope that the worst of inflation really did pass during the summer.
More importantly for markets, the slowdown bolstered investors’ expectations that the Federal Reserve will downshift to an increase of 0.50 percentage points when it announces its next hike to short-term rates on Wednesday.
“The market’s hanging onto what the Fed does,” said Michael Antonelli, market strategist at Baird, adding that Wall Street will be watching whether Fed officials acknowledge the latest evidence of declining inflation.
“Will that be part of their language?” he said. “And if they say, ‘yes, we see it, but that doesn’t change our mind at all,’ then they’ve told us that they still think they need to hike or that they need to stay at higher rates for longer.”
Such increases slow the economy by design, in hopes of cooling conditions enough to get inflation under control. But they also risk causing a recession if rates go too high, and they push down on prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments in the meantime. Smaller hikes to interest rates would mean less added pain to both the economy and to markets.
A hike of 0.50 percentage points would usually be a big deal because it’s double the typical move. But with inflation coming off its worst level in generations, it would be a step down from the four straight mega-hikes of 0.75 percentage points the Fed has approved since the summer.
Expectations for an easier Fed meant some of Wall Street’s wildest action Tuesday was in the bond market, where yields fell sharply immediately after the inflation report’s release.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which helps set rates for mortgages and other important loans, fell to 3.51% from 3.62% late Monday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, dropped to 4.22% from 4.39%.
Other central banks around the world, including the European Central Bank, are also likely to raise their own rates by half a percentage point this week.
Technology stocks helped push the S&P 500 higher. The benchmark index added 29.09 points to close at 4,019.65. The Dow rose 103.60 points to 34,1087.64. The Nasdaq gained 113.08 points to finish at 11,256.81.
Small company stocks also gained ground. The Russell 2000 index rose 13.75 points, or 0.8%, to 1,832.36.
Despite the encouraging data, analysts cautioned that the Federal Reserve’s fight against inflation — and its hikes to interest rates — still has further to go. Even if the Fed is moving at smaller increments each time, it may still ultimately take rates higher than markets expect.
“That downshift should not be conflated with a pivot,” said Jake Jolly, senior investment strategist at BNY Mellon Investment Management. “It’s going to be a bumpy, long slog and probably going to take most of next year.”
Some investors continue to bet the Fed will cut interest rates in the latter part of 2023. Rate cuts generally act like steroids for stocks and other investments, but the Fed has been insisting it plans to hold rates at a high level for some time to ensure the battle against inflation is won.
And even if inflation is indeed firmly on its way down, the global economy still faces threats from the rate increases already pushed through. The housing industry and other businesses that rely on low interest rates have shown particular weakness, and worries are rising about the strength of corporate profits broadly.
Still, such caution wasn’t enough to erase all of the relief that washed through Wall Street as economists called the inflation data “cool” in more ways than one.
A measure of fear among stock investors, which shows how much they’re paying for protection from upcoming swings in prices, eased by more than 9%.
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AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed from Bangkok and AP Business Writer Matt Ott contributed from Washington. Veiga reported from Los Angeles.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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https://wtmj.com/ap-news/2022/12/13/wall-street-closes-higher-after-inflation-cooled-in-november-3/
| 2022-12-14T01:24:05
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Kari Lake files 70-page lawsuit against top Arizona election officials
PHOENIX - Kari Lake filed a lawsuit against several top election officials in Arizona on Friday just days following the certification of the 2022 election in which she lost her bid to become governor.
"The eyes of the country are on Arizona," the lawsuit filing begins. The 70-page lawsuit was filed in Maricopa County on Dec. 9, just days after the election's certification.
Among the claims in the filing, Lake claims there were thousands of illegal votes, that Arizona Secretary of State and Governor-elect Katie Hobbs and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer were involved in government censorship, and that whistleblowers saw "violations" in the chain of custody of ballots.
Another lawsuit was filed in Mohave County on Friday by Abe Hamadeh and the Republican National Committee.
Hobbs earned 1,287,891 votes, making her Arizona's next governor, and Lake earned 1,270,774 votes.
Lake has refused to acknowledge that she lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs and has for weeks drawn attention to voters who said they experienced long lines and other difficulties while voting on Election Day in Arizona's largest county.
Lake previously filed a public records lawsuit demanding Maricopa County hand over a variety of documents related to the election.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/kari-lake-files-70-page-lawsuit-against-top-arizona-election-officials
| 2022-12-14T01:24:08
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DETROIT (AP) — A Saginaw man pleaded guilty to intimidating and attempting to intimidate people from speaking out and protesting in support of Black Lives Matter, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Kenneth Pilon, 61, entered the plea to two hate crime charges in federal district court, the Justice Department said. Pilon is due to be sentenced on March 23, 2023.
Pilon was accused of calling nine Starbucks stores in Michigan and telling the employees answering his calls to relay racial threats to Starbucks employees wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts. Pilon also threatened to kill Black people, prosecutors said.
Pilon also pleaded guilty to placing a noose inside a vehicle with an attached note reading: “An accessory to be worn with your ‘BLM’ t-shirt. Happy protesting!”
Pilon allegedly left the messages two days after Starbucks announced in 2020 that it would provide 250,000 Black Lives Matter T-shirts to employees who wanted to wear them during their shifts amid protests condemning the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
“The defendant also used a noose, a vile symbol of hatred and violence that harkens back to the Jim Crow era, to convey a threat of racial violence," Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a news release.
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Man-admits-hate-crimes-for-Black-Lives-Matter-17652366.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:08
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FRANKLIN, La. (AP) — A prisoner was shot and killed inside a south Louisiana courthouse after officials reported a struggle between the inmate and a sheriff's deputy.
The St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office said the shooting happened just before 9 a.m. Monday. Louisiana State Police say the corrections deputy had brought the inmate to the courthouse in Franklin when some sort of scuffle broke out in a deliberation room just outside a courtroom.
State police haven't said what they believe happened or who shot the inmate. The dead man's name has not been released pending notification of relatives.
The inmate was pronounced dead at a hospital. No deputies were injured.
Trooper Derek Senegal, a spokesman for the agency, said investigators are interviewing the officer and witnesses, as well as reviewing any available video recordings.
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/Prisoner-shot-dead-in-Louisiana-courthouse-after-17652335.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:09
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Updated December 12, 2022 at 12:46 PM ET
A six-year-old on a quest to keep a unicorn in her backyard figured she'd get the hard part out of the way first — getting permission from animal control.
In mid-November, eager to cut through the red tape, Madeline wrote a letter to the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control with a straightforward request. (The county redacted her last name from the letter on its social media posts.)
"Dear LA County," it reads. "I would like your approval if I can have a unicorn in my backyard if I can find one. Please send me a letter in response."
Director Marcia Mayeda obliged a few weeks later, writing back with good news. The department does in fact license unicorns, she said, under certain conditions.
Those include polishing the unicorn's horn at least once a month with a soft cloth, feeding it watermelon (one of its favorite treats) at least once a week, covering it with only nontoxic and biodegradable sparkles and giving it "regular access to sunlight, moonbeams and rainbows."
Confident that Madeline will meet the five requirements, Mayeda also sent her a "preapproved unicorn license" for her elusive future pet — in the form of a certificate on pink paper with curlicue script, as well as a heart-shaped tag engraved with the words "permanent unicorn license."
And, because unicorns "are indeed very rare to find," the department is also giving Madeline a plush unicorn — wearing the tag, of course — to keep her company during her search, as a token of its appreciation.
"It is always rewarding to hear from young people who thoughtfully consider the requirements of providing a loving home to animals," Mayeda wrote. "I commend your sense of responsible pet ownership to seek permission in advance to keep a unicorn in Los Angeles County."
Mayeda told the Washington Post that this is the first time the department has received a request for a license for a unicorn — or any mythical creature — in her more than two decades working there.
She said she and her colleagues deal with a lot of "emotionally draining" and "life-and-death" issues on the job, whether that's seeing cases of animal abuse or animals hurting people, or making decisions about having to put down dangerous or sick animals.
So Madeline's letter has considerably brightened their spirits, she said, adding that "everybody was just so touched and charmed and just thrilled with it." They were also impressed with the first-grader for wanting to ask permission in the first place, and doing her research to figure out how to go about that.
Madeline's mother didn't want to discourage her when she asked for a unicorn, so suggested it might come down to getting government approval, Mayeda told The New York Times.
"Madeline said, 'OK,' and she marched off and an hour later she came back and said, 'Will you help me mail this?' " Mayeda said.
While the letter was received and replied to in a matter of weeks, Madeline still hadn't gotten the response as of Friday, since her mom thought the license would be a perfect birthday present for later this month.
She is due to visit the department this week, under the guise of visiting an animal care center to discuss her unicorn license application. Safe to say she's in for a magical surprise.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/npr-national-news/npr-national-news/2022-12-09/a-girl-asked-if-she-could-keep-a-unicorn-in-her-yard-la-county-gave-her-a-license
| 2022-12-14T01:24:10
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The late congressman and civil rights giant John Lewis will be honored with a postage stamp in 2023, the U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday.
The design for the stamp uses a photograph taken by Marco Grob for a 2013 issue of Time magazine. Lewis, then 73, wears a dark suit and blue tie and looks directly into the camera.
A 1963 picture of Lewis at a workshop on nonviolent protest in Clarksdale, Mississippi, taken by Steve Schapiro, is planned for the margin of the printed stamp sheets.
The Postal Service said the stamp “celebrates the life and legacy” of Lewis, who died at age 80 in 2020 from pancreatic cancer.
“Even in the face of hatred and violence, as well as some 45 arrests, Lewis remained resolute in his commitment to what he liked to call ‘good trouble,’” the agency said.
Lewis’ bloody beating by Alabama state troopers in Selma in 1965 helped galvanize opposition to racial segregation. By that time he was a major leader in the Civil Rights Movement, having helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and spoken at the March on Washington just before Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Lewis went on to be elected to the Atlanta City Council and then to a long career in Congress, where he was frequently hailed as a moral leader.
U.S. Sen. John Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat and onetime intern for Lewis, wrote to the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee last year requesting the stamp.
Other stamps announced Tuesday include ones honoring the Florida Everglades, skateboard art and children’s book author and illustrator Tomie dePaola.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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https://wtmj.com/national/2022/12/13/us-postage-stamp-to-honor-civil-rights-icon-john-lewis/
| 2022-12-14T01:24:11
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Ram recalling 1.23 million pickups for tailgate trouble
Ram will voluntarily recall 1.23 million pickups sold in the U.S. due to an issue with their tailgates that could allow them to open while the vehicle is in motion.
The action affects 2019-2022 model year 1500, 2500 and 3500 trucks.
Ram said the striker plates for the tailgate latches may be out of alignment, which could prevent their complete closure.
No accidents or injuries are known to be related to the problem, which poses the threat of allowing cargo to spill out of a truck's bed and onto the road.
Approximately 145,965 of the recalled vehicles are estimated to have the problem.
The recall does not apply to the Ram Classic model, which is a previous-generation truck that is still in production, or Ram's equipped with the Multifunction Tailgate option, which is split in the middle and can either be opened down or to the side like a door.
JEEP ISSUES RECALL AND STOP-SALE ORDER ON 63K HYBRID WRANGLER SUVS FOR POWER LOSS
An additional 170,000 trucks sold outside the U.S. will also be recalled.
Notifications will be sent to owners in January, but owners can call the automaker 1-800-853-1403 for more information.
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE
Ram urges owners to make sure they properly secure any cargo in the meantime.
Read more of this story from FOX Business.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/ram-recalling-1-23-million-pickups-for-tailgate-trouble
| 2022-12-14T01:24:14
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Two men and a pet dog were rescued from a sailboat without power or fuel more than 200 miles off Delaware, 10 days after friends and relatives had last heard from them, the U.S. Coast Guard said Tuesday.
Kevin Hyde, 65, and Joe Ditomasso, 76, were sailing from Cape May, New Jersey, to Marathon, Florida. But they disappeared after their Atrevida II sailboat left North Carolina's Outer Banks on Dec. 3.
The Coast Guard was notified Sunday that the two sailors were overdue and launched a search that would stretch from Florida to New Jersey, the agency said. Coast Guard cutters and aircraft participated in the search along with ships from the U.S. Navy and commercial and recreational vessels.
On Tuesday, Hyde and Ditomasso waived their arms to draw the attention of the crew of the Silver Muna tanker ship off Delaware's coast, the Coast Guard said.
The sailboat's lack of fuel or power rendered its radios and navigation equipment inoperable, according to the Coast Guard.
The men and the dog were brought aboard the tanker shortly after 4 p.m. An evaluation by the ship's medical staff revealed no immediate concerns, the Coast Guard said.
The two men will stay aboard Silver Muna until it arrives in New York, where the Coast Guard will evaluate them further and reunite them with their family and friends.
“This is an excellent example of the maritime community’s combined efforts to ensure safety of life at sea,” Daniel Schrader, a Coast Guard spokesman said in a statement.
Cmdr. Schrader also stressed the importance of sailors traveling with what's commonly known as an “EPIRB” or Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. It allows people on a boat to immediately make contact with first responders in an emergency.
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Men-and-dog-missing-for-10-days-found-on-17652239.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:15
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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate
WASHINGTON (AP) — The director of the federal Bureau of Prisons is defending her decision to rally behind a high-ranking agency official who climbed the ranks after beating Black inmates in the 1990s, saying Tuesday that she feels he's shown contrition and deserves a second chance.
Colette Peters, making her first comments since The Associated Press published an investigation chronicling Thomas Ray Hinkle’s sordid past and subsequent promotions, said she met with Hinkle soon after starting as director in August and came away convinced that he should keep his job.
"He openly shared some of his past and has shared with me that he’s a changed man, that he’s not the person he was 25 years ago, and that he wants to spend the remainder of his career helping people understand not to make those exact same mistakes,” Peters said.
“It’s that type of behavior change that we’re looking for in both those in our custody and who work for us. Some, they don't get a second chance. But he owned it.”
Peters spoke with the AP after testifying Tuesday before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has spent months scrutinizing the Bureau of Prisons' inability to clamp down on rampant staff sexual misconduct.
Subcommittee Chairman Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said the eight-month, bipartisan investigation — after the arrests of a warden and other workers at a federal women’s prison in Dublin, California — shows that the agency is “failing systemically” in its duty to protect female inmates from the “cruel and unusual punishment” of abuse at the hands of correctional workers.
The Bureau of Prisons’ inability to detect and prevent staff-on-inmate assaults has led to dozens of assaults and left some accused workers free to offend again, the subcommittee found. The findings echo common complaints about the agency's handing of sexual abuse and other staff misconduct, some of which has been detailed in AP reporting.
Among the subcommittee's other findings: Audits meant to ensure compliance with a federal prison rape prevention law have proven inadequate; inmates who report abuse often face retaliation; and the agency's internal affairs office is facing a backlog of 8,000 cases, including hundreds of sex abuse allegations. Peters said she's added 40 workers to the internal affairs office to process cases faster.
At the Dublin prison, the rape-prevention audits were being supervised by the former warden, Ray Garcia, who was convicted last week of abusing three inmates. At a prison in Coleman, Florida, where six have been accused of sexually abusing inmates since 2012, officials shipped all the female inmates away two days before they were to be interviewed by auditors.
“This situation is intolerable," Ossoff said. “Sexual abuse of inmates is a gross abuse of human and constitutional rights and cannot be tolerated by the United States Congress.”
Tuesday's hearing began with disturbing testimony from three victims of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse — women who say the Bureau of Prisons compounded their suffering by ignoring warning signs, enabling coverups and failing to equip prisons with practical tools, like functioning security cameras.
Carolyn Richardson recounted how a correctional officer at a federal lockup in New York City preyed on her visual impairment, sexually assaulting her after he brought her to medical appointments. Briane Moore, crying at times, said the prison captain who abused her had threatened to put her in solitary confinement or transfer her to another prison if she reported him.
Linda De La Rosa said the Bureau of Prisons “entirely failed” in allowing the correctional officer who attacked her and three other women in 2019 at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky, to continue working despite previous allegations of sexual abuse. The officer, Christopher Goodwin, pleaded guilty in March and is serving 11 years in prison.
“The problem is the old boys club,” De La Rosa said. “Prison staff, managers, investigators, correctional officers — they all work together for years, if not decades. No one wants to rock the boat, let alone listen to female inmates. There is no objective, independent oversight.”
The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, as Richardson, Moore and De La Rosa have done. All sexual activity between a prison worker and an inmate is illegal. Correctional employees enjoy substantial power over inmates, controlling every aspect of their lives from mealtime to lights out, and there is no scenario in which an inmate can give consent.
Peters, who testified alongside Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, has vowed to change the culture that has enabled officers to sexually assault inmates. She reiterated the Bureau of Prisons' zero-tolerance policy for staff sexual misconduct and said she's urged transparency throughout the agency, so that she's not kept in the dark on any incidents that occur.
A Justice Department working group issued recommendations last month for curbing staff sexual misconduct. Among them: starting an anonymous abuse reporting process, overhauling investigations, seeking longer prison sentences for workers convicted of abuse and potentially granting early release to victimized inmates.
Peters, who visited Dublin early in her tenure, said the crisis there shows some prisons have been infected with a “culture of abuse and a culture of misconduct" and that “when it’s high-level officials engaging in these egregious criminal acts there’s clearly a culture” of abuse.
“That culture needs to be reset in order to ensure the safety and security of those in our care and custody,” Peters testified. “And I think we do have systemic changes in the works that will help us reset that culture there and throughout the federal Bureau of Prisons.”
As for Hinkle, Peters will face more questions about him this week when she meets with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin. The Illinois Democrat tweeted that he was “very concerned about the allegations” in the AP's article about Hinkle "and whether BOP will address abuses, prioritize safety, and improve their flawed approach to misconduct investigations.”
On Monday, prison workers and union officials picketed outside the agency's regional office in Stockton, California, and called on Peters to fire Hinkle and his boss, Regional Director Melissa Rios.
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On Twitter, follow Michael Sisak at http://twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/Prisons-chief-Official-who-beat-inmates-deserves-17652318.php
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When I first heard about the dead man in the street, I didn't know his name.
It was just a story, about a possible war crime, committed in the first days of the Russian invasion into Ukraine. The victim was a Ukrainian man, allegedly murdered by Russian soldiers and left dead in the street next to his blown-up car, near a place called Nova Basan.
At first the story about this man stood out because it was different. He'd apparently been a member of the French Foreign Legion at some point. And perhaps, I'd thought, that could mean clues and investigations — maybe even consequences — far beyond the tiny village where he died, 50 miles northeast of Kyiv.
But as I spoke with investigators and human rights advocates about this case and many others, I came to see, as they have, just how elusive justice could be for any of the 50,000 alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
Giorgi Gogia, a Human Rights Watch investigator who first told me about the case, said he'd been documenting so many crimes he didn't have time to investigate this case any more.
And Oleksandra Matviichuk, who heads the Center for Civil Liberties, one of the recipients of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, said she had started thinking of war crimes as mere statistics.
"I started to use numbers instead of names," she said.
I wanted to focus on a name instead of a number, to put a face to all the apparent crimes but also to gauge whether justice is possible. If I could solve even one murder — learn about the victim, what happened, who was responsible — maybe it would reveal how likely accountability is for all of them.
To understand that story, I decided again to focus on just one — the story of the dead man in the street, near Nova Basan.
The villages of Nova Basan and Bobrovytsia
I first visited Nova Basan in May, about a month after Ukrainian forces liberated the village from Russian control. It was a small community, surrounded by farmland, with a population of fewer than 3,000.
Before the war, families would leave their homes in Kyiv to spend their summers there.
Now, the burned-out hulls of Russian tanks lined the road.
It wasn't hard to find the scene of the killing: Everyone in the village knew where it was. Two men standing near an abandoned tank gestured down the road to where the man's car still sat along the highway, like a memorial to the violence inflicted by the Russian invasion in late February.
The car, a French-made Citroen, was a sickly white color, badly burned, with incinerated parts lying haphazardly around. Much of the front of the car was gone, torn away by an apparent explosion. Rust had begun to set in.
And the man's body was no longer there.
We headed into the center of the village, past the destroyed local café and a looted supermarket, to the town hall to see local administrator Mykola Dyachenko. In his office, where the window still had a bullet hole from the fighting, he told me what he knew.
It wasn't much. The man was killed as Russian forces entered the village on Feb. 28, Dyachenko said. He had, indeed, been a French legionnaire at one point, but he'd served his contract and returned home to Ukraine before the war began.
Dyachenko didn't know the dead man's name, but he knew his mother, Oksana Breus. She lived in another village, Bobrovytsia, about a 30-minute drive away. She invited us over to discuss her son.
When we arrived, she welcomed us into her home and put a photograph of her son on the table between us as we sat in the kitchen.
Her son's name was Oleksandr, she said. Oleksandr Breus. He had been killed in the first week of the war at the age of 28.
"He was going to Kyiv to pick up his sister and his fiancé. He wanted to take them to France," Oksana told us. She didn't know the details about how he died, and said she didn't want to know. But she had a video of the scene, taken the day of Oleksandr's death, which had circulated on social media.
She played it for us, then started to cry.
The video showed the same burned-out car we'd seen earlier, with a large hole in the back door on the driver's side. The camera pans right to show a man's body on the ground by the car, his right arm curled across what remains of his head. It looks like an execution.
"The Russians drove through, damn it," said the man recording the video. "Poor thing."
Oksana was too distraught to continue talking and suggested that we talk to Oleksandr's sister for more details. As she showed us out, walking into the yard, she stopped to show us one more thing.
It's a German shepherd with sad eyes, sitting inside an enclosure — Oleksandr's dog, Clifford.
"Such a handsome dog," she said. "Do you see how much he misses him?"
Investigating a war crime
As we watched the video Oksana showed us — the apparent explosion, the violence inflicted on Oleksandr — it seemed clear he was killed by military weaponry. Given what else we knew, that would make Oleksandr's killing almost certainly a war crime committed by Russian forces.
In the video, Oleksandr is dressed in civilian clothing: a brown jacket. There is no evidence that he was armed, and his family said he had no weapons.
His car was facing west, toward Kyiv. That suggests that when it was destroyed, it was facing away from the direction Russian forces were advancing.
And if he had died Feb. 28, as his mother, the town administrator and others had all told us, there was little chance that his killing had been the result of actions by Ukrainian forces. Every person we talked to in Nova Basan told us that the Ukrainian military, caught off guard by the initial invasion, was not present in or around Nova Basan when Oleksandr was killed.
War crimes are governed by a number of international laws and treaties. But there are local laws as well. In Ukraine's criminal code, there is a specific statute that addresses war crimes, something that falls to people like Vadym Prymachok to investigate.
"We're looking at murder. We're looking at torture. We're looking at looting. We're looking at harm to civilians," said Prymachok, a senior official in Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation.
We showed Prymachok the video of Oleksandr and the car.
"To give you my opinion, this is a very clear case of a war crime ... in the sense that they saw who he was. They had a chance to not fire," Prymachok told us. "There was no threat that he was posing against any of the Russians that were in his vicinity."
Prymachok told us that he was not in charge of investigating the Oleksandr Breus case. So we traveled to the city of Chernihiv, the capital of the region where Oleksandr was killed. Serhiy Vasylyna is the head of the regional prosecutor's office there.
When we visited him, not far from the Belarusian border, he listed the challenges he faced as an investigator and prosecutor in a time of war.
He didn't have enough investigators or medical experts. The ones he had couldn't access the sites of alleged crimes because of continued fighting. And most people in his office had spent their careers as civilians, with little experience with the intricacies of investigating and prosecuting war crimes.
And then there was the issue of the sheer size of the caseload.
"My prosecutors, we are spending 24/7 on these 1,300 cases," Vasylyna told us in July.
Oleksandr's case was just one that overwhelmed investigators were juggling. Vasylyna said they were doing their best to learn more and would be in touch if they had more information.
Who was Oleksandr Breus?
I first met Oleksandr's sister, Anya Breus, in the conference room of a hotel in downtown Kyiv. She was eager to tell us of her warm memories, classic stories of mischievous siblings.
Like the time she broke the ceiling lamp in their home.
"I told him, do not [tell] mom. ... He said, 'I will not tell her if you will wash dishes for two weeks,'" Anya recalled, laughing. "Yes, it's a funny story."
Oleksandr Breus was also a fierce Ukrainian patriot, others said. Though he could speak Russian, he often refused to in order to prove a point.
"For him, it was important to separate us from them," said close friend Sasha Hrushko.
Oleksandr would go online to the website Chatroulette to debate Russians about history and to point out what he saw as the differences between Ukrainians and Russians.
"He always watched videos about Ukrainian history. He told us all the time that Russians are awful people," Anya recalled.
Those who knew him best say Oleksandr was also somewhat restless. His hobbies were varied: He was the captain of his college basketball team; he loved photography and the art of capturing memories; and he spent long days out on the road riding his bicycle.
He even had a brief stint as an amateur rapper.
He had an agriculture degree, but no clear path for the future. There were a lot of grand ideas — with one friend, he discussed setting up a thrift store; with another, the prospect of opening up a bar.
In 2018, he joined the French Foreign Legion to find discipline and a stable job.
"He was looking for himself," Hrushko said. "He was looking for some realization. That's why he just found ... himself in the French Legion."
A career in the military suited Oleksandr well — he thrived in stressful situations.
Borys, a French Foreign Legion colleague who requested that his last name be withheld since he is still in the legion, called him calm and collected. "He was able to deal very easily with tough situations," he said. "He was very levelheaded, coolheaded."
Oleksandr was in the legion for four years. But Borys said that after Oleksandr aggravated an old injury during an obstacle course, he was forced to work an administrative job.
Ultimately, Oleksandr left the French military in late 2021 after getting permanent residency status in France.
Borys also told us about Oleksandr's girlfriend, Yulia Pohyba.
Oleksandr and Yulia had tried to have a long-distance relationship while he was in France, but it wasn't easy. Living in Ukraine, she interpreted his application for French permanent residency as a sign he wasn't serious about her.
Oleksandr decided to return to Ukraine, about a month before the Russian invasion began, in an attempt to repair the relationship. They began to reconcile, and Oleksandr began seriously talking to his friends about marriage.
"I am sure that he wanted to propose," Borys said.
Trapped in Bobrovytsia
On Feb. 24, Russia invaded Ukraine.
With his girlfriend safe in the suburbs of Kyiv, Oleksandr left for his childhood home in Bobrovytsia, along with his dog, Clifford. The dog didn't get along with Yulia's dog, so his plan was to drop him off and head back to the capital city — a two-hour drive — to evacuate his girlfriend and sister to western Ukraine and, eventually, out of the country.
But the Ukrainian government suddenly instituted a multiday curfew in Kyiv, essentially trapping him in place and preventing him from driving back. The uncertain, anxious situation brought him to tears.
"He was disappointed because he wanted to [get] to Yulia as soon as possible. And he stayed at Bobrovytsia for two days," his sister Anya said. "That was the first time I heard him cry on the phone."
All the while, a long line of Russian armored vehicles and troops rolled down the same highway that Oleksandr would eventually need to take to Kyiv.
Ukrainian forces, outnumbered and caught off guard, tried whatever they could to slow Russian progress. One local Ukrainian official said that in a neighboring town to Nova Basan, the Ukrainian military blew up a bridge to halt the Russian advance. He also said Russian soldiers killed six civilians as they passed through the town.
Other civilians told us the same thing, describing senseless executions of unarmed locals who just happened to be walking by.
Then, on the morning of Feb. 28, four days into the invasion, Ukrainian officials lifted the curfew in Kyiv.
Oleksandr began his journey to the capital.
And so did the Russian forces.
Russian troops enter Nova Basan
Yulia Gozhak, a resident of Nova Basan, told us she went out that morning to get some groceries with her adult son. She had heard that the bakery had fresh bread that morning.
But as she shopped, her son burst into the store.
"Mom, forget about the bread!" he said. "Let's go! I can hear tanks shooting near the brick plant!"
The two jumped into her car, with her son at the wheel. As they raced out of the village, they arrived at an intersection: the road to Bobrovytsia, the direction Oleksandr was traveling from.
Chaos erupted as she drove through the intersection. Russian armored vehicles were stationed on the far side, and when they saw the car, they opened fire.
"I didn't see any tanks. I just heard shots and saw the smoke," she said.
The front window shattered as bullets penetrated the inside of her car. Gozhak covered her face with her hands, and a bullet struck the phone she was carrying and ricocheted into her hand.
Gozhak managed to make it up the road to her home.
Traveling the other way, Oleksandr was about to drive through the same intersection.
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The killing of Oleksandr Breus
Oleksandr had left his childhood home around 8 a.m., shortly after the curfew in Kyiv was lifted. His mother said she saw him off — he was wearing a pair of white Nikes and loose-fitting green pants. While he was driving, his father, Mykola, called to check on him.
"I asked, 'Where are you?' [Oleksandr] said, 'I am at a checkpoint and see a [Russian armored] column,'" Mykola later recalled.
He urged Oleksandr to turn around.
"That's the only thing we talked about and that's the last time we spoke," Oleksandr's father said.
Somewhere between 9 and 10 that morning, a number of people in the village say they heard an explosion.
Tetiana Baryshovets works at a local supermarket that closed early as Russian forces pressed deeper into the village. Locals hid in their homes, sometimes their basements, as troops entered Nova Basan, but Baryshovets says she decided to make a dash home on her bicycle.
Pedaling home she saw a car on fire, with a body lying next to it, in the middle of the road.
"I stopped. I wanted to check if he was alive," she said. "But it was obvious that he wasn't. I didn't see the head, but the hand and legs were twisted unnaturally."
Pictures would later confirm that Oleksandr's green pants were partially burned off, exposing blackened flesh below the knee. His white Nike sneakers were gone — the fire had apparently burned them off.
"I started trembling, thinking, 'Why would they kill a person like that?'" Baryshovets recalled. "I started crying."
She also came to the stark realization that she could have shared Oleksandr's fate. It was all timing: Had Oleksandr arrived a short while earlier he might have been able to pass through before Russian troops arrived. Had he come later, he might have been prevented from passing through at all.
That evening, Anya Breus launched a search for her brother. No one had heard from him all day. She began posting on social media.
When Hrushko saw the post, he expected the worst.
"At that moment, I really understand for myself that he's probably dead," said Hrushko, "because [it only takes] 2 hours [to get] from Nova Basan to Kyiv."
A stranger passed Anya Breus the video of the crime scene, which had been circulating on social media. She forwarded it to Hrushko, who had no doubt that it was Oleksandr in the video.
"Just seeing his body, it's enough," Hrushko said. "I mean, there is nothing to be discussed. You just — just feel it."
It took us months to piece together what had happened to Oleksandr, and we knew much more than when we started. We knew who he was, why he was on the road, and roughly when he died. We found his home, his family — and had even heard recordings of his voice.
But still, we knew almost nothing about the essential question for war crimes prosecutors: How, precisely, was he killed?
For that, we needed an eyewitness.
A single eyewitness emerges
Nova Basan local administrator Mykola Dyachenko doubted that anyone had seen the killing.
"I don't know about eyewitnesses. Probably there weren't any," he said. "When the Russians entered our village, people were not coming outside."
Many locals said they deleted messages, photos and social media posts as the Russians rumbled into the village, worried their phones would be confiscated by the occupying force.
The owner of the gas station across the street from where Oleksandr died turned off his surveillance cameras before Russian troops invaded the town, town officials told us. The cameras at the nearby supermarket were no help either, because Russian forces took the hard drives when they occupied the town.
In many cases, we learned, Russian troops allegedly destroyed evidence that would show who was there. We canvassed houses in Nova Basan for potential eyewitnesses, but many homes weren't occupied.
It felt like a dead end — until, one day, a man approached us to say: "I hear you've been looking for me?"
The man's name was Oleksandr Holod. We'd knocked on his door before, but he hadn't been home.
This time, he invited us in. His place, which stood across the street from the wreckage of Oleksandr's vehicle, was dusty and dark inside. No electronics, no carpeting. After the war began, Holod had moved out.
Holod said he was an eyewitness to the killing and started describing what he saw on the morning of Feb. 28, the column of Russian armored vehicles descending on his village.
"I simply heard the noise, the increasing noise, they're coming ..." he began.
But before he could finish the story, the door flew open and a woman burst into the home. Laryssa Anatolievna, a shopkeeper we'd interviewed the previous day, was incensed that we were talking to Holod.
"I came here to tell the truth to the people, to tell the truth that you collaborated with the [Russians]," she said. "You drank with them; you were freely moving around on your bicycle. Tell me! Didn't it happen?" she shouted.
Holod defended himself, saying he was one of the few from the area who actually stayed during the occupation. Anatolievna didn't stay, he said.
"I saw everything with my own eyes here," Holod said, adding that he only cooked for Russian soldiers during the occupation, and only because they forced him to.
I asked Holod to continue. Dashing from window to window, he described what he saw on the day Oleksandr was killed.
Soldiers left their armored vehicles, known as BTRs, and spread out through the neighborhood as Russian forces moved in, he said.
"The first column that I saw [had] five BTRs," he said.
He saw a car coming from the direction of Bobrovytsia. Oleksandr's car. The same burned-out Citroen that remained outside his home.
Three BTRs were ahead of the car on the road, and Oleksandr pulled alongside the fourth.
Holod said he saw Oleksandr stop and get out of the car.
"He started to quarrel with them about something," Holod said. "He started to say to them something like 'What are you doing here?' and 'Why are you doing this?'"
As Oleksandr talked, two soldiers positioned themselves behind him down the road. One had a machine gun, Holod said. The other one — the tall one — had an assault rifle.
Without warning, the tall one opened fire from about 50 meters away.
Holod said he saw a flash of blood from Oleksandr's head as he fell to the road. Then the closest BTR turned its turret toward Oleksandr's car and fired a round from its main gun.
Holod's description of what happened on the morning of Feb. 28 matches other evidence we gathered. The hole in the side of Oleksandr's car could have been where the Russian armored vehicle fired into it. The direction of blood splatter indicated the shooting started from the approximate direction Holod described.
And Holod's version of events matched the details shown in videos of the scene taken on the day of the killing — videos Holod says he'd never seen. This last claim also seemed plausible. Holod didn't have a smartphone.
Holod's testimony became the centerpiece of our understanding of Oleksandr's death, because it fit with all of the other details we learned.
Details like what happened to Oleksandr's body.
Oleksandr's body lies in the street
Two days after Oleksandr was killed, Tetiana Baryshovets, the woman on the bicycle, returned to the scene. She couldn't bear the thought of Oleksandr's body lying in the road.
But someone — she didn't know who — had gotten there first. There was a light cloth over Oleksandr's body, she said, and some bricks to hold it in place. She's haunted by the memory.
"I can't get it out of my mind because ... I see it every time I go to and from work," she said.
Russian forces fully occupied the village of Nova Basan during this time. Residents say there were no Ukrainian forces nearby. And they describe Russian soldiers committing atrocities without resistance.
Nina Nahorna, a teacher in Nova Basan, said that shortly after they entered the village, dozens of Russian soldiers were in her yard, acting like they owned the place.
"One of them ... told us that he had already killed six civilians," she said. "And then we realized that they didn't care if we were civilians or not. We realized that these people have lost touch with reality."
Villagers report a number of civilians killed in Nova Basan besides Oleksandr.
Mykola Dyachenko, the local administrator, was detained and subject to a mock execution.
It was a grinding and brutal period for the villagers.
"They are not humans, do you understand? They are monsters," said 86-year-old Oleksandra Lyska, whose chickens were killed, provisions were taken away and home was destroyed. "They are terrible people. Terrible."
Oleksandr's body remained on the street for a month during the period of Russian occupation. Family members say it was just too dangerous to retrieve him.
"We were told that Russian soldiers did not allow anyone to be buried," said Anya, Oleksandr's sister. "My mother told me that there was also one 14-year-old boy who was killed. His mother went to them, kneeling, and was asking them for permission. But they were shooting over her head and sending her back."
Still, Oleksandr's mother contacted the Nova Basan town council every day to see if they were allowed to retrieve the body. But the Russians imposed strict restrictions on movement and were prone to opening fire to clear vehicles and civilians off the road.
Then, in early April, Ukrainian forces made their way back into Nova Basan after a ferocious battle. It was finally possible to retrieve Oleksandr's body.
Serhii Tsyba said that recovering bodies was the way he contributed to the war effort.
"I have no fear," Tsyba said. "My father always taught me that you don't need to be afraid of the dead. Be afraid of the living ... I cannot help the soldiers. I will be helping people so that ... they have everything to go on their last trip."
On the 4th of April, Tsyba's assignment was to go to the recently liberated village of Nova Basan.
His hands began shaking as he replayed the memory. This time, he knew who he and his colleague were picking up. It was his friend Oleksandr, whom he called by his nickname, Sasha. They had grown up together in nearby Bobrovytsia.
"[My colleague] told me who we were picking up when we were driving down. I told him that I really knew Sasha, and that's why I took it so hard," he recalled.
Tsyba was responsible for taking photos of the scene. Wild animals had torn at Oleksandr's body. Tsyba then helped lift the body into a coffin.
There's a photo of Oleksandr's mother, Oksana, arriving on the scene, wracked with grief.
Oleksandr Breus was brought to a small cemetery, down the road from his childhood home, and was buried on April 6, 2022. The sight of his dead friend's body, lying out in the cold for a month, triggered something in Tsyba that would last much longer.
"Anger," said Tsyba. "I've never felt anything like it. Fear turned into anger, and hate. Because we never attacked anyone; we just lived our lives."
The perpetrators
While searching for more witnesses to the events in Nova Basan, we found one more video that showed Russian forces moving through the village on the day Oleksandr was killed. We reached out to the person who posted it on Facebook, who told us her mother took the video.
And that's how we found ourselves walking into a furniture store in Kyiv, where Olena Bondarenko works as a manager.
After the war started, Bondarenko fled the capital city for the home her family owned in Nova Basan, hoping there would be less fighting in the small village. On the morning of Oleksandr's death, she stood outside in a state of shock as armored vehicles rolled by.
She showed us another video that she took of passing Russian troops. An armed soldier appears in the frame and aims a rifle at her — causing her to gasp — before firing off shots in her direction. Bondarenko drops to the floor and her father pulls her away.
But later, she noticed something unusual about the vehicles on the video.
"They were new tanks with the letter 'O,'" she explained. "On TV, they were only talking about 'Z' and 'V.' I told the Ukrainian military about these vehicles with the letter 'O.' They were totally different. It was a different type of armored vehicle and they wore a different colored uniform."
We didn't know it then, but Olena Bondarenko's videos were crucial to understanding which Russian units were on the ground.
The first clue was those "O" markings.
We developed sources in Ukrainian intelligence agencies, police, and their prosecutorial offices — and showed them what we'd found.
They couldn't tell us conclusively which units were in Nova Basan that day. But they told us the letter "O" meant the vehicles were units from Russia's Central Military District.
They also provided us with a list of Russian units that might have been in Nova Basan when Oleksandr was killed.
We turned to people who track military equipment by scouring all the information that's publicly available: Tom Bullock, a now-former analyst at Janes, a company that monitors militaries all around the world; and George Barros, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.
Witnesses said the Russian troops in Nova Basan were not wearing insignia or patches that would identify who they were or where they came from.
But both Bullock and Barros said Bondarenko's video showed a specific kind of armored vehicle called a BTR-82A.
This model of armored vehicle was a crucial clue. Among the list of units our sources had provided, only a small number had this equipment.
"The fact that we can identify that that's a BTR-82 Type A is significant because there's only two brigades [in Russia's Central Military District] that actually field that equipment," Barros said. "And those are the 15th Brigade and the 30th Brigade."
Russian military doctrine suggests that these BTRs, and these brigades — the 15th and 30th — would have been used for clearing operations.
Clearing is a task that militaries do when they're going into a contested area to ensure that it's safe," Barros explained. And he sees evidence of that mission in Bondarenko's videos.
"They're walking down the main stretch of the village, what it looks like, and they're checking, you know, house to house. They're peeking over fences. And what they're probably doing is a clearing operation," he said.
By identifying the two units that were most likely in Nova Basan, we dramatically narrowed down the number of suspects. The Russian military deployed a ground force of about 120,000 people to Ukraine during its initial invasion.
The two units we had identified, the 15th and 30th brigades, had far fewer soldiers: about 4,000, Barros said.
Our eyewitness Holod said he saw five BTRs in the immediate vicinity when Oleksandr was killed. Each vehicle has a capacity of 10 soldiers.
So if our reporting bears out, the killer was among a group of about 50 people, from the 15th or 30th brigade, who passed through the intersection in Nova Basan between 9 and 10 a.m. on Feb. 28. He was tall and carried an assault rifle.
But we'd reached our limit. We couldn't get the actual names of those 50 men, much less the tall one with the rifle.
We could name one potential defendant in a war crimes case, though: the Russian military officer responsible for the units that were there.
"It's very clear that at that point in time in Nova Basan we saw significant elements in that area likely commanded by Russian Colonel General Alexander Lapin," Barros said, relying on open-source information.
Alexander Lapin was in command of the men who seem to have killed Oleksandr and blown up his car.
Knowing his name could be significant: If all of the killings and shootings around Nova Basan are compiled, and if investigators could argue that the atrocities were systematic and widespread, they could pin responsibility for those crimes on the commander. They could prosecute him for war crimes.
There are other pieces of evidence still to be uncovered. For instance: A few months ago, we met with the investigators in charge of Oleksandr's case, who said they were looking at cellphone records for both his phones and the phones of Russian soldiers who were in the area.
And there could be other records of who was at the intersection. Roman Avramenko heads the Ukrainian nongovernmental organization Truth Hounds, which documents and investigates war crimes.
"Maybe in a year or in 10 years, Russia will break down and the Ukraine investigators would be obtaining a full list of soldiers being deployed to different areas," Avramenko said.
As for Oleksandr's status as a French permanent resident, we asked a top human rights lawyer if the French government would investigate the case. She told us Oleksandr doesn't qualify for a war crimes investigation in France because he was not a citizen. The French Foreign Legion ignored my request to meet and discuss the case, except to say that he left the legion in 2021.
We looked into the possibility of the International Criminal Court taking on the case. International law clearly outlaws killing unarmed civilians. But we quickly found that the ICC doesn't usually pursue cases like Oleksandr's.
"Normally they focus on the high-level commanders and functioneers who issue orders, and they focus on the cases with [prominent or large numbers of] victims ... or with mass destruction. So most probably the ICC would not take this case," Avramenko explained.
It falls to Ukrainian investigators to show that individual war crimes are part of a larger pattern.
That's the goal of Ukrainians like Vadym Prymachok, the senior official at the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigations, who named the Russian minister of defense, president and generals as officials he'd like to eventually bring to justice by showing "systemic war crimes," he said.
But the Ukrainian system is swamped.
We'd spent months conducting close to 100 interviews and developing sources throughout Nova Basan and the Ukrainian government. And, at least for now, we couldn't narrow it down any further.
Oleksandr's death was just one alleged war crime. There are some 50,000 under investigation across Ukraine.
Even those who have been working on investigating war crimes for years are pessimistic about finding any full measure of justice.
"Frankly speaking, I think it's not possible to establish justice for all the cases of war crimes committed in the course of full-scale invasion," Avramenko said.
Four months after Oleksandr was killed, we went with his sister and mother to visit his grave. There were violets around the dirt mound where his body lay at rest.
That day, Oleksandr's mother told us one more thing about her son: that last year, while flying home to Ukraine, he had a layover in the Netherlands.
"He knows that I love flowers. He had some spare time and bought me tulip seeds," she explained. "I planted them last autumn, and this year 10 out of 10 — all of them bloomed."
They bloomed precisely on Mother's Day, she said, about two months after Oleksandr's death.
The audio for this story was produced by Monika Evstatieva; edited by Barrie Hardymon and Robert Little; digital production by Meg Anderson; research by Barbara Van Woerkom; photo editing by Emily Bogle; visuals and graphic editing by Nick McMillan and Nick Underwood. Luka Oleksyshyn, Ross Pelekh, Ievgen Afanasiev, Mark Raczkiewycz, and Julian Hayda contributed reporting, translation and research help.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — The City Council was disrupted Tuesday by another round of boisterous, foul-mouthed protests after a councilman facing widespread calls to resign for his involvement in a racism scandal defiantly returned to the chamber and took his seat.
Councilman Kevin de Leon’s appearance prompted some council members to walk out amid shouting and chanting from rival groups in the audience, while council President Paul Krekorian ordered a recess amid the outburst.
The turmoil represented a reprise of a Friday meeting where de Leon appeared in the ornate chamber for the first time since mid-October. He is the only council member involved in the scandal still resisting calls from President Joe Biden to step down, while continuing to collect his annual salary of nearly $229,000 — among the most lucrative paydays for city council members in the nation.
Protesters were shouting and waving signs in the audience throughout the meeting. During a public comment period, most of those who spoke denounced de Leon as a racist and called on the councilman to resign, but some supporters defended him and lauded his work in his district, which includes downtown Los Angeles and the heavily Latino Boyle Heights neighborhood.
The continuing disruptions turned the meeting at times into a veritable Theater of the Absurd, with protesters screaming profanities, city staffers pleading for calm and police evicting some protesters who refused repeated orders to settle down.
When de Leon appeared about midway through the meeting, more shouting ensued, some council members immediately left the room and Council President Paul Krekorian quickly called a recess. The council later resumed business, enacting Mayor Karen Bass' signature proposal declaring a state of emergency for homelessness that she promised to propose on her first day in office.
“This is a monumental day for the city,” Bass said in a statement after the vote. “This declaration will enable us to move faster and unlock every tool possible” to take on the crisis, with over 40,000 unhoused people living in tent encampments or rusty RVs that have spread into virtually every neighborhood.
The scandal was triggered by a leaked recording of crude, racist comments from a year-old meeting involving de Leon, then-council President Nury Martinez, labor leader Ron Herrera and then-Councilman Gil Cedillo — all Latino Democrats — in which they plotted to expand their political power at the expense of Black voters during a realignment of council district boundaries.
Martinez and Herrera resigned within days of the disclosure of the recording, and Cedillo vanished from public sight. Cedillo's term ended Monday after he lost a reelection bid earlier this year, leaving de Leon as the only person involved in the scandal still holding his job.
It remains unknown who made the recording that was posted on a website, or why.
De Leon has apologized repeatedly but said he will not resign. He argues that he wants to continue working on homelessness, fallout from the pandemic and the threat of renter evictions in his district.
There is no legal avenue for his colleagues to remove him — the council can only suspend a member when criminal charges are pending.
Stripped of his ability to participate on council committees, facing widespread pressure to resign and after an extended absence from council meetings, de Leon has been maneuvering to return to the public sphere, despite being reviled by colleagues who say they cannot work with him.
Last week, he scuffled with an activist who heckled him at a holiday toy giveaway.
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/Racism-scandal-prompts-another-day-of-protests-in-17652276.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:17
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By NICK PERRY
Associated Press
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged New Zealand to take a leading role in focusing on the environmental destruction his country is suffering as a result of Russia’s invasion.
Zelenskyy delivered his message via video link to lawmakers who packed the debating chamber at 8 a.m. Wednesday. He became just the second foreign leader to address New Zealand’s parliament, after Australia’s Julia Gillard did so in 2011.
Zelenskyy said it was possible to rebuild a nation’s economy and infrastructure, even though it may take many years.
“But you can’t rebuild destroyed nature, just as you can’t restore destroyed lives,” he said.
Zelenskyy is pushing for a 10-point peace plan that, as well as environmental protection, including items such as nuclear safety and justice. He has been asking various countries to take a lead on different points.
He said some of the environmental effects of the war included poisoned groundwater, ravaged forests, flooded coal mines and huge areas of Ukraine that remain contaminated from unexploded mines.
Zelenskyy thanked New Zealand for their contributions to Ukraine’s war effort so far and offered a message of hope.
“Various dictators and aggressors, they always fail to realize the strength of the free world’s governments,” he said.
New Zealand announced it was providing another 3 million New Zealand dollars ($2 million) in humanitarian aid through the International Committee of the Red Cross, adding to the NZ$8 million it had already provided.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Zelenskyy her country’s support for Ukraine wasn’t determined by geography or diplomatic ties.
“Our judgment was a simple one,” she said. “We asked ourselves the question, ‘What if it was us?’”
She said that in such a scenario, New Zealand would want nations in the international community to use their voices, “regardless of their political systems, their distance, or their size.”
Lawmakers finished the address by singing a World War II-era song in the Indigenous Māori language.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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https://wtmj.com/national/2022/12/13/zelenskyy-asks-new-zealand-to-focus-on-wars-ecological-toll/
| 2022-12-14T01:24:18
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https://sportspyder.com/cf/texas-am-aggies-football/articles/41856243
| 2022-12-14T01:24:18
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'Seusspicious-looking' passenger causes HOV driver to be cited
AVONDALE, Ariz. - A "Seusspicious-looking" passenger was caught in the HOV lane on I-10 in the Phoenix area end authorities are warning inflatable holiday decorations don't count as another person in your car.
The driver was on I-10 near Avondale Boulevard for an early morning commute with an inflatable Grinch holiday decoration in the passenger seat.
"The trooper stopped the driver and determined the grumpy green guy was, in fact, an inflatable Grinch," the Arizona Department of Public Safety said in a Twitter post.
The driver was cited, although DPS said it appreciated the holiday spirit.
"With extra traffic on AZ roads this time of year, be sure you understand the law (ARS 28-737) & restricted times before using HOV lanes," DPS cautioned.
Photo by the Arizona Department of Public Safety
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/seusspicious-looking-passenger-causes-hov-driver-cited-az-phoenix
| 2022-12-14T01:24:20
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| 0.959621
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LUSAIL, Qatar (AP) — Lionel Messi bent over, clutched his left hamstring and appeared to grimace, immediately spreading panic through the soccer world but especially among all Argentines.
Was their superstar — their idol — injured? Was he going to have to come off early in the World Cup semifinals?
No such luck for Croatia.
Before long, Messi was producing perhaps the best performance of his record-tying 25 appearances at the World Cup, leading Argentina to a 3-0 victory over Croatia on Tuesday that set up a meeting with either France or Morocco in Sunday’s final.
Messi is back in soccer's biggest match on his mission to win the game's greatest prize for the first time. At 35, he could hardly be playing any better.
Messi converted a penalty and played a part in the other two goals by Julián Álvarez — one with an outrageous piece of skill that brought roars of approval from Argentina's huge following — to turn an initially tense occasion into a procession.
“A lot is going through my head — it’s very emotional seeing all of this,” Messi said in a post-match interview on the field as he looked up at Argentina’s celebrating, scarf-waving supporters. “To see the fans — ‘the family’ — during the whole tournament was so incredible. We’re going to the final, which is what we wanted.”
It will be Messi’s second World Cup final — Argentina lost the other one to Germany in 2014 — in what might be his last appearance at the tournament.
The stage is set for a player widely regarded as one of the game’s best, if not the absolute best, to go out on the ultimate high.
He is thrilling his legion of fans along the way.
His swivel and driving run to set up the third goal for Álvarez in the 69th minute left Josko Gvardiol — one of the best defenders at the World Cup — grasping at thin air and epitomized Messi's confidence and swagger.
He is embracing the responsibility of leading Argentina to its third World Cup title, scoring in five of his six games in Qatar.
He even had a penalty saved in the one game in which he didn’t score.
“I am honored to train him and see him play,” said Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni, who was in tears in the post-match celebrations. “Every time you see him play, it’s a huge source of motivation for his teammates, fans and the whole world.”
Croatia failed in its bid to reach a second straight World Cup final after conceding two goals in a five-minute span from the 34th, just when the team was looking comfortable at Lusail Stadium and Messi was raising concerns by rubbing his hamstring.
Maybe it was a ruse. Messi was soon toying with his opponents in a way only he can and put Argentina ahead by lifting his penalty into the top corner after Álvarez was taken out by Dominik Livakovic after clipping the ball past the Croatia goalkeeper.
Álvarez scored himself in the 39th after a surging run from halfway, which started after he collected Messi's short pass. Then came the crowning moment, Álvarez's second goal, after Messi took Gvardiol for a ride in the right corner.
It was one game too far for Croatia, which had beaten Japan and Brazil on penalties in the knockout stage, and star midfielder Luka Modric, who — at 37 — has likely played his final World Cup match.
Summing up a frustrating game for the little midfield magician, he was substituted in the 81st minute and had a bright red nose after the ball slammed into his face moments earlier.
“The first goal took the match in a different direction,” Croatia coach Zlatko Dalić said. “It’s the true Messi we all expected to see.”
Argentina maintained its record of never having lost in the World Cup semifinals and has reached the final for the sixth time.
Those dark days after losing to Saudi Arabia in its opening group match seem so long ago now for Argentina, which will be hard to stop in the final with Messi playing this well.
“Even though we lost our first match, we were confident that this group was going to push forward,” Messi said. "We know what we are, and we called on the fans to believe in us.”
MESSI RECORDS
Messi became Argentina’s record scorer at World Cups with his third penalty of the tournament taking him to 11 goals in total — one more than Gabriel Batistuta. He also tied the record for most appearances at the World Cup by playing for the 25th time, the same number as Lothar Matthäus of Germany.
ALVAREZ
The 22-year-old Álvarez didn’t start the tournament as Argentina’s striker. He only took the place of Lautaro Martinez in the third group game and now has four goals, one behind Messi and Mbappé. He is the youngest player to score twice in a World Cup semifinal match since a 17-year-old Pele scored a hat trick in 1958.
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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Messi-Argentina-beat-Croatia-3-0-to-reach-World-17651809.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:21
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska lawmaker may be unfit to hold office because he’s a member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group that has either advocated for or engaged in concrete action to overthrow the U.S. government, a lawyer said Tuesday in opening arguments for a case against state Rep. David Eastman.
“We are going to present overwhelming evidence on both those elements,” said Goriune Dudukgian, a lawyer with an Anchorage civil rights law firm. Dudukgian represents Randall Kowalke, a Wasilla resident whose lawsuit seeks to disqualify Eastman from holding office.
The bench trial before Superior Court Judge Jack McKenna will determine whether Eastman, a Wasilla Republican, will be allowed to be seated in the Legislature next month after winning reelection last month. McKenna earlier ordered the state Division of Elections not to certify the results of the race pending an outcome in this case.
Kowalke’s lawsuit points to a provision in the Alaska Constitution stating that no one who “advocates, or who aids or belongs to any party or organization or association which advocates, the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United States or of the State shall be qualified to hold” public office.
Stewart Rhodes, a founder of the Oath Keepers, and Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs were convicted last month of seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol for what prosecutors called a violent plot to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory. They were among 33 Oath Keepers charged after the insurrection, Dudukgian said.
Eastman, represented by attorney Joe Miller, has admitted to being in Washington, D.C., that day, but only to witness an address from then-President Donald Trump that preceded the attack on the Capitol.
Eastman said he did not take part in the riot, and that he has not been accused of any crime.
Miller did not give opening arguments Tuesday, and chose to deliver those before he presents the defense’s case.
Eastman is a member of the Oath Keepers and has contributed more than $1,000 in support of the group, Dudukgian said.
“And even after the events of the Jan. 6 insurrection and the recent conviction of founder Stewart Rhodes, he still has not taken any steps to resign his membership or renounce his membership, either publicly or privately,” Dudukgian said.
He said they would present evidence that the Oath Keepers combined extremist rhetoric about the insurrection with seditious conduct, and claimed the group would fight either with or without Trump’s support.
“And on Jan. 6, they did exactly what they said they were going to do,” Dudukgian said, later adding: “They had a singular purpose, which was to stop the transfer of presidential power.”
Dudukgian’s first two witnesses were to be experts on terrorism who have studied the Oath Keepers extensively.
Miller objected to the plaintiff's selection of experts, saying they should only bring in people who could testify to the facts of the case.
“They would have subpoenaed, for example, various Oath Keepers, they would have subpoenaed people that had actually witnessed what happened on Jan. 6 or any other individual that had evidence that they believe relevant to the ultimate issue in the case, and that is whether or not the Oath Keepers is, in fact, an organization that advocates by force of violence the overthrow of the government,” Miller said.
McKenna said he agreed with Miller that as a general proposition, an expert cannot be used as a conduit for hearsay, but he said he needs to see the evidence and hear the testimony before deciding on Miller’s standing objection.
Eastman, who sat with Miller in a Palmer courtroom, is on a list of witnesses that Miller plans to call, along with Oath Keepers members.
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/Trial-starts-Alaska-lawmaker-with-Oath-Keepers-17652303.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:23
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| 0.972001
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https://sportspyder.com/cf/texas-am-aggies-football/articles/41857833
| 2022-12-14T01:24:25
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Social media influencer 'Ali Spice' killed in wrong-way, hit-and-run crash in Florida
DELAND, Fla. - A deadly hit-and-run crash that killed three people early Sunday morning involving a wrong-way driver is gaining international attention.
James Dulin confirmed to FOX 35 News on Tuesday that his daughter, Alexandra, was one of the victims. The 21-year-old woman was a popular influencer across social media known as "Ali Spice" with a presence on a number of platforms including TikTok and Instagram. "It’s still not real. We still have moments of disbelief," Dulin said.
He last spoke to his daughter on Saturday afternoon, planning her trip home to Indiana for Christmas. Dulin said his daughter was just home for Thanksgiving. "I guess with my daughter you always stake a lot of pictures. But man, we took a lot of pics over Thanksgiving, and who knew that those were the last pictures that we would take? At least together," Dulin said.
Troopers with the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) said that just after 2 a.m. on Sunday, a driver going the wrong way on State Road 44 slammed into the Infiniti in which Ali was riding, Dulin said. She and the two other passengers died. Troopers said the driver of the Infiniti suffered serious injuries. Investigators said after the crash, the driver of the Toyota Tacoma who caused the crash ran from the scene, leaving a passenger behind in his car.
"I just want to see justice," Dulin said.
So do Ali’s fans on social media. Countless tributes to the petite blonde have been posted on various social media platforms, sharing their condolences with her family. "We all knew she was big, but my goodness gracious, I had no idea how big until whomever took us from this family and her social media world," Dulin said.
Alexandra Dulin, 21, was a popular influencer across social media known as "Ali Spice." She died in a hit-and-run, wrong-way crash in Florida on Dec. 11, 2022. [Credit: James Dulin]
Dulin said his daughter’s main focus was her social media accounts and that she worked at Hooters for fun. Ali had started college majoring in fashion design when she was approached about modeling. Dulin said she dropped out of college when her modeling and social media took off. He joked that he wishes some of Ali’s clothing was a bit bigger but added that he is very proud of what she accomplished.
"She was a hard-working proud young lady who carved out her own entrepreneurial path… and she did it on her own," Dulin said. "She knew how to blend a message of helping people, and she knew when she needed to I don’t know if you want to call it spice it up and get more eyeballs."
Dulin said initially his daughter’s followers were mostly men, but she worked hard to diversify her audience. "She had purposefully built up a following, so she had a voice, and then when she had the voice she used the voice to try to help girls," Dulin said.
Ali’s followers are now helping to spread the word that the driver accused of causing the deadly crash is still on the run. They are hoping it helps troopers find that suspect.
"It’s unbelievable to know how much perfect strangers could care about our 21-year-old daughter," Dulin said. He tells FOX 35 News that he and his wife have been contacted by people they don't even know who have sent scores of text messages offering their condolences, flowers, or food.
FHP said the suspect's car has been impounded. They are working to get a search warrant, so they can collect evidence, which they hope will pinpoint who was driving at the time of the fatal crash.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/social-media-influencer-killed-in-volusia-county-triple-fatal-hit-and-run-crash
| 2022-12-14T01:24:26
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SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday that she is commuting the sentences of all of the state's 17 inmates awaiting execution, saying all of their death sentences will be changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Brown, who has less than a month remaining in office, said she was using her executive clemency powers to commute the sentences and that her order will take effect on Wednesday.
“I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people — even if a terrible crime placed them in prison," Brown said in a statement.
Oregon has not executed a prisoner since 1997. In Brown's first news conference after she became governor in 2015, the Democrat announced she would continue a moratorium on the death penalty imposed by her predecessor, former Gov. John Kitzhaber.
So far, 17 people have been executed in the U.S. in 2022, all by lethal injection and all in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Missouri and Alabama, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Like Oregon, some other states are moving away from the death penalty.
In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019 and shut down the state’s execution chamber at San Quentin. A year ago, he moved to dismantle America's largest death row by moving all condemned inmates to other prisons within two years.
In Oregon, Brown is known for exercising her authority to grant clemency.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Brown granted clemency to nearly 1,000 people convicted of crimes. Two district attorneys, along with family members of crime victims, sued the governor and other state officials to stop the clemency actions. But the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled in August that she acted within her authority.
The prosecutors, in particular, objected to Brown’s decision to allow 73 people convicted of murder, assault, rape and manslaughter while they were younger than 18 to apply for early release.
Brown noted that previously she granted commutations “to individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary growth and rehabilitation” but said that assessment didn't apply in her latest decision.
“This commutation is not based on any rehabilitative efforts by the individuals on death row,” Brown said. “Instead, it reflects the recognition that the death penalty is immoral. It is an irreversible punishment that does not allow for correction.”
The Oregon Department of Corrections announced in May 2020 it was phasing out its death row and reassigning those inmates to other special housing units or general population units at the state penitentiary in Salem and other state prisons.
A list of inmates with death sentences provided by the governor's office had 17 names.
But the state Department of Corrections' website lists 21 names. One of those prisoners, however, had his death sentence overturned by the Oregon Supreme Court in 2021 because the crime he committed was no longer eligible for the death penalty under a 2019 law.
Officials in the governor's office and the corrections department did not immediately respond to an attempt to reconcile the lists.
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Oregon-governor-commutes-death-sentences-to-life-17652334.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:27
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. special envoy for South Sudan urged the country’s leaders on Tuesday to intervene to halt clashes and sexual violence and urged that a two-year delay in holding elections not be used as “a holiday break.”
Nicholas Haysom told the U.N. Security Council that while some noticeable progress has been made in implementing a 2018 peace agreement, key deadlines have been missed amid a worsening humanitarian crisis. According to forecasts, 9.4 million of the country’s roughly 12 million people will need humanitarian aid next year, which he called “an alarming figure.”
There were high hopes when oil-rich South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long conflict. But the country slid into civil war in December 2013 largely based on ethnic divisions when forces loyal to President Salva Kiir battled those loyal to Vice President Riek Machar.
Tens of thousands of people were killed in the war, which ended with the 2018 peace agreement that brought Kiir and Machar together in a government of national unity which was supposed to hold elections before February 2023.
The Security Council meeting followed last week’s announcement that South Sudan’s ruling party endorsed Kiir -- the country’s only president since it gained independence -- for another term in elections now scheduled for December 2024.
Haysom said legal and technical arrangements for elections should be finalized soon.
A first step has been taken to reconstitute the National Elections Commission, which will manage the electoral process, he said, but the issue of quotas for women and the disabled remain unresolved. He also expressed concern that deadlines for a political parties act, a reconstituted constitutional review commission, and the establishment of a constitutional drafting committee have all been missed.
“We are concerned that delays are already having a domino effect on subsequent key benchmarks,” Haysom said.
On the security front, the U.N. envoy expressed concern at clashes among armed militias which are causing displacement in northern Jonglei and Upper Nile states, and worries about intercommunal violence in northern Warrap state and ongoing cattle raiding and migration-related conflicts in the three Equatoria states.
Clashes along the strategically important Nile River corridor have “taken on an ethnic dimension, and I condemn the human rights violations and abuses that have included killings, conflict-related sexual violence, pillaging and large-scale displacements,” he said.
Haysom, who heads the U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, said that following the graduation of the first contingent of unified forces the government must now take action to deploy them to hotspots “to serve as a truly national army.”
He stressed that “the worsening humanitarian crisis … is a reminder of the imperative for the parties to deliver on their commitments in the peace agreement.”
U.S. political counselor John Kelley echoed Haysom’s call for the country’s transitional leaders to deliver on the peace agreement and address immediate issues including the ongoing violence in Upper Nile and Jonglei states, and the dire humanitarian situation.
The violence in Upper Nile reportedly killed an estimated 500 civilians and displaced another 15,000, he said.
“It is abundantly clear that South Sudan’s leaders need to resolve this crisis,” Kelley said. “We urgently call on South Sudan’s leaders to act now and end the violence” as well as reported human rights violations including sexual violence and the rape and gang rape of girls as young as 8-years-old.
On the political front, Kelley said the United States reiterates its disappointment at the decision by South Sudan’s leaders to extend the transition and delay elections for another two years, “despite failing over the past four years to deliver fully on the commitments they made in the 2018 revitalized peace agreement.”
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https://www.chron.com/news/article/UN-envoy-South-Sudan-leaders-must-halt-violence-17652268.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:29
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| 0.961168
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https://sportspyder.com/cf/texas-am-aggies-football/articles/41859006
| 2022-12-14T01:24:31
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| 0.738227
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South Florida developer proposes 27-story high-rise in Daytona Beach
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - A South Florida developer wants to build a 27-story high-rise in Daytona Beach.
Eddie Avila with Daytona Atlantic Development said he hopes the project would change the city’s beachfront landscape giving it a modern look.
"We want to be a destination. So in order to do that you have to do something different than what’s there already," he said via a Zoom call with FOX 35 News.
If approved, the project would be built on State Road A1A near Silver Beach Ave. [GMap]. Avila’s company has owned the property since 2005. Avila said the recession halted plans back then but said it’s time to make a move.
Eddie Avila with Daytona Atlantic Development is proposing a 27-story high-rise in Daytona Beach. [Credit: Eddie Avila]
Eddie Avila with Daytona Atlantic Development is proposing a 27-story high-rise in Daytona Beach. [Credit: Eddie Avila]
The project and others like it have faced pushback from residents. Paul Zimmerman is the president of Sons of the Beach, a community organization. Zimmerman said he plans to file a temporary moratorium on development east of A1A citing concerns about erosion from recent storms.
"And we will be sending out a letter to the county council and to city officials including the members of the planning boards," he said.
Zimmerman said he wants the city to evaluate and research before allowing any more developments on the coast. As for Avila’s project, he argues it would be built using today’s code – working to withstand major storms.
"Better construction and windows and structure deeper pilings and its elevated," he said.
Pending approval from the city, Avila said he hopes to break ground at the end of next year.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/south-florida-developer-proposes-27-story-high-rise-on-daytonas-beachside
| 2022-12-14T01:24:32
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| 0.950773
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FRANKLIN, La. (AP) — A prisoner was shot and killed inside a south Louisiana courthouse after officials reported a struggle between the inmate and a sheriff's deputy.
The St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office said the shooting happened just before 9 a.m. Monday. Louisiana State Police say the corrections deputy had brought the inmate to the courthouse in Franklin when some sort of scuffle broke out in a deliberation room just outside a courtroom.
State police haven't said what they believe happened or who shot the inmate. The dead man's name has not been released pending notification of relatives.
The inmate was pronounced dead at a hospital. No deputies were injured.
Trooper Derek Senegal, a spokesman for the agency, said investigators are interviewing the officer and witnesses, as well as reviewing any available video recordings.
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Prisoner-shot-dead-in-Louisiana-courthouse-after-17652335.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:33
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| 0.975674
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OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Aledmys Díaz and Jace Peterson, who both can play the infield and outfield, reached agreements with the Oakland Athletics on two-year contracts through the 2024 season.
The A's announced the deals Tuesday, one day after trading away catcher Sean Murphy to the Braves in a three-team swap. Oakland acquired catcher Manny Piña and pitching prospects Kyle Muller, Freddy Tarnok and Royber Salinas from Atlanta and outfield prospect Esteury Ruiz from Milwaukee.
Also Tuesday, the A’s designated infielders Ernie Clement and Yonny Hernandez for assignment.
Díaz started games at six different positions for Houston this year — 22 in left field, 18 at second base, 16 at shortstop, eight at third base, seven at designated hitter and five at first base. He batted .243 with 12 home runs and 38 RBIs and a .691 OPS in 92 games for the World Series champion Astros.
The left-handed-hitting Peterson hit .236 with a career-best eight homers and 34 RBIs played in 113 games for the Brewers in 2022 and like Díaz is versatile: He started 67 games at third, nine in right field, three at first and two in left, three games at second and even pitched once.
Oakland finished 60-102 in manager Mark Kotsay’s first year and missed the playoffs for a second straight year following three consecutive berths and an AL West title during the coronavirus-shortened 2020 season.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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https://www.chron.com/sports/article/A-s-reach-deals-with-infielder-outfielders-D-az-17652328.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:35
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| 0.946169
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https://sportspyder.com/cf/texas-am-aggies-football/articles/41859941
| 2022-12-14T01:24:37
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Study: More than half of US car crash victims had drugs in system
DETROIT (AP) - A large study by U.S. highway safety regulators found that more than half the people injured or killed in traffic crashes had one or more drugs, or alcohol, in their bloodstreams.
Also, just over 54% of injured drivers had drugs or alcohol in their systems, with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), an active ingredient in marijuana, the most prevalent, followed by alcohol, the study published Tuesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found.
Although the study authors say the results can’t be used to gauge drug use on the roads nationwide, they say the high number of drivers, passengers and other road users with drugs in their systems is concerning.
Acting NHTSA Administrator Ann Carlson said the study found that nearly 20% of the drivers tested had blood-alcohol levels of 0.08% or higher, exceeding the legal limit in every state.
"We also are concerned that nearly 20% of road users tested positive for two or more drugs, including alcohol," she said. "The use of multiple substances at once can magnify the impairing effects of each drug."
The study of blood tests taken at seven level-one trauma centers and four medical examiners' offices across the country comes at a critical time on U.S. roadways. Traffic deaths have risen dramatically since the start of the pandemic to what officials describe as crisis levels. And more states are legalizing recreational use of marijuana with research just starting about the impact on traffic safety.
"It's scary to all of us in a way," said Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, a watchdog group. "But frankly, I don't think I'm that surprised."
Brooks, who is based in Washington, D.C., said he often sees people drive after drinking or smoking cannabis.
"There's not a commute that goes by that I don't smell marijuana on the road, from someone actively smoking in a car in front of me," he said.
The study took place between September of 2019 and July of 2021 at trauma centers in Miami and Jacksonville, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; Baltimore; Worcester, Massachusetts; Iowa City, Iowa; and Sacramento, California. Medical examiners at four of the sites also took part.
The study, which took blood-test data from 7,279 road users, also found that more than half of injured pedestrians and just over 43% of injured bicyclists had a drug in their bloodstreams.
Of the total number of patients, 25.1% tested positive for THC, 23.1% for alcohol, 10.8% for stimulants and 9.3% for opioids, according to the study.
The study was set up to measure prevalence of drug and alcohol use, but the numbers can't be used to show drug use on the roads nationwide because the hospitals were not picked to represent the entire country, said Amy Berning, a NHTSA research psychologist and one of the study authors.
The study also can't be used to show a correlation between increasing numbers of highway deaths and drug use, although she said detecting such a high percentage of use with a large sample size is "a concern for NHTSA."
Researchers counted any level of drugs in blood samples and did not measure whether people were impaired, Berning said. It likely will use the data as a baseline for further study of the issue, she said. NHTSA is planning a national roadside survey to measure alcohol and drug use on the roads. It last did such a survey in 2013 and 2014.
The presence of THC in so many patients could be because it can stay in a bloodstream longer than alcohol or other drugs, Berning noted.
The study was released as NHTSA began its annual holiday season campaign against impaired driving.
"Making a plan for a safe, sober ride home is critical to saving lives this holiday season," Carlson said.
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| 2022-12-14T01:24:38
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The director of the federal Bureau of Prisons is defending her decision to rally behind a high-ranking agency official who climbed the ranks after beating Black inmates in the 1990s, saying Tuesday that she feels he's shown contrition and deserves a second chance.
Colette Peters, making her first comments since The Associated Press published an investigation chronicling Thomas Ray Hinkle’s sordid past and subsequent promotions, said she met with Hinkle soon after starting as director in August and came away convinced that he should keep his job.
"He openly shared some of his past and has shared with me that he’s a changed man, that he’s not the person he was 25 years ago, and that he wants to spend the remainder of his career helping people understand not to make those exact same mistakes,” Peters said.
“It’s that type of behavior change that we’re looking for in both those in our custody and who work for us. Some, they don't get a second chance. But he owned it.”
Peters spoke with the AP after testifying Tuesday before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has spent months scrutinizing the Bureau of Prisons' inability to clamp down on rampant staff sexual misconduct.
Subcommittee Chairman Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said the eight-month, bipartisan investigation — after the arrests of a warden and other workers at a federal women’s prison in Dublin, California — shows that the agency is “failing systemically” in its duty to protect female inmates from the “cruel and unusual punishment” of abuse at the hands of correctional workers.
The Bureau of Prisons’ inability to detect and prevent staff-on-inmate assaults has led to dozens of assaults and left some accused workers free to offend again, the subcommittee found. The findings echo common complaints about the agency's handing of sexual abuse and other staff misconduct, some of which has been detailed in AP reporting.
Among the subcommittee's other findings: Audits meant to ensure compliance with a federal prison rape prevention law have proven inadequate; inmates who report abuse often face retaliation; and the agency's internal affairs office is facing a backlog of 8,000 cases, including hundreds of sex abuse allegations. Peters said she's added 40 workers to the internal affairs office to process cases faster.
At the Dublin prison, the rape-prevention audits were being supervised by the former warden, Ray Garcia, who was convicted last week of abusing three inmates. At a prison in Coleman, Florida, where six have been accused of sexually abusing inmates since 2012, officials shipped all the female inmates away two days before they were to be interviewed by auditors.
“This situation is intolerable," Ossoff said. “Sexual abuse of inmates is a gross abuse of human and constitutional rights and cannot be tolerated by the United States Congress.”
Tuesday's hearing began with disturbing testimony from three victims of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse — women who say the Bureau of Prisons compounded their suffering by ignoring warning signs, enabling coverups and failing to equip prisons with practical tools, like functioning security cameras.
Carolyn Richardson recounted how a correctional officer at a federal lockup in New York City preyed on her visual impairment, sexually assaulting her after he brought her to medical appointments. Briane Moore, crying at times, said the prison captain who abused her had threatened to put her in solitary confinement or transfer her to another prison if she reported him.
Linda De La Rosa said the Bureau of Prisons “entirely failed” in allowing the correctional officer who attacked her and three other women in 2019 at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky, to continue working despite previous allegations of sexual abuse. The officer, Christopher Goodwin, pleaded guilty in March and is serving 11 years in prison.
“The problem is the old boys club,” De La Rosa said. “Prison staff, managers, investigators, correctional officers — they all work together for years, if not decades. No one wants to rock the boat, let alone listen to female inmates. There is no objective, independent oversight.”
The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, as Richardson, Moore and De La Rosa have done. All sexual activity between a prison worker and an inmate is illegal. Correctional employees enjoy substantial power over inmates, controlling every aspect of their lives from mealtime to lights out, and there is no scenario in which an inmate can give consent.
Peters, who testified alongside Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, has vowed to change the culture that has enabled officers to sexually assault inmates. She reiterated the Bureau of Prisons' zero-tolerance policy for staff sexual misconduct and said she's urged transparency throughout the agency, so that she's not kept in the dark on any incidents that occur.
A Justice Department working group issued recommendations last month for curbing staff sexual misconduct. Among them: starting an anonymous abuse reporting process, overhauling investigations, seeking longer prison sentences for workers convicted of abuse and potentially granting early release to victimized inmates.
Peters, who visited Dublin early in her tenure, said the crisis there shows some prisons have been infected with a “culture of abuse and a culture of misconduct" and that “when it’s high-level officials engaging in these egregious criminal acts there’s clearly a culture” of abuse.
“That culture needs to be reset in order to ensure the safety and security of those in our care and custody,” Peters testified. “And I think we do have systemic changes in the works that will help us reset that culture there and throughout the federal Bureau of Prisons.”
As for Hinkle, Peters will face more questions about him this week when she meets with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin. The Illinois Democrat tweeted that he was “very concerned about the allegations” in the AP's article about Hinkle "and whether BOP will address abuses, prioritize safety, and improve their flawed approach to misconduct investigations.”
On Monday, prison workers and union officials picketed outside the agency's regional office in Stockton, California, and called on Peters to fire Hinkle and his boss, Regional Director Melissa Rios.
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On Twitter, follow Michael Sisak at http://twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/
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| 2022-12-14T01:24:39
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Suspect arrested in deadly Chandler road-rage shooting: police
CHANDLER, Ariz. - A suspect has been arrested in connection to a road-rage shooting in Chandler that left a man dead.
Chandler Police say officers responded just before 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 5 to Hamilton Street and Chandler Boulevard for reports that someone had been shot.
Once at the scene, officers found Carlos Doiron with a gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital where he later died.
Investigators say Doiron got into an argument with someone else during a road-rage incident prior to the shooting. Shortly after the incident, Doiron visited a family member to drop off gifts. The suspect from the road-rage incident returned and fired shots into Doiron's vehicle.
After the shooting, police say the suspect fled in a white Chevy Cobalt with a rear spoiler.
MORE: Man dies following apparent road-rage shooting in Apache Junction
On Dec. 7 just after 1 p.m., officers located the suspect's vehicle near Arizona Avenue and Chandler Boulevard. Officers pulled over the driver, 37-year-old Domingo Luz, and identified him as the suspect in the road-rage shooting.
Luz was arrested and booked into jail. He is accused of first-degree murder.
Domingo Luz
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| 2022-12-14T01:24:44
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — The City Council was disrupted Tuesday by another round of boisterous, foul-mouthed protests after a councilman facing widespread calls to resign for his involvement in a racism scandal defiantly returned to the chamber and took his seat.
Councilman Kevin de Leon’s appearance prompted some council members to walk out amid shouting and chanting from rival groups in the audience, while council President Paul Krekorian ordered a recess amid the outburst.
The turmoil represented a reprise of a Friday meeting where de Leon appeared in the ornate chamber for the first time since mid-October. He is the only council member involved in the scandal still resisting calls from President Joe Biden to step down, while continuing to collect his annual salary of nearly $229,000 — among the most lucrative paydays for city council members in the nation.
Protesters were shouting and waving signs in the audience throughout the meeting. During a public comment period, most of those who spoke denounced de Leon as a racist and called on the councilman to resign, but some supporters defended him and lauded his work in his district, which includes downtown Los Angeles and the heavily Latino Boyle Heights neighborhood.
The continuing disruptions turned the meeting at times into a veritable Theater of the Absurd, with protesters screaming profanities, city staffers pleading for calm and police evicting some protesters who refused repeated orders to settle down.
When de Leon appeared about midway through the meeting, more shouting ensued, some council members immediately left the room and Council President Paul Krekorian quickly called a recess. The council later resumed business, enacting Mayor Karen Bass' signature proposal declaring a state of emergency for homelessness that she promised to propose on her first day in office.
“This is a monumental day for the city,” Bass said in a statement after the vote. “This declaration will enable us to move faster and unlock every tool possible” to take on the crisis, with over 40,000 unhoused people living in tent encampments or rusty RVs that have spread into virtually every neighborhood.
The scandal was triggered by a leaked recording of crude, racist comments from a year-old meeting involving de Leon, then-council President Nury Martinez, labor leader Ron Herrera and then-Councilman Gil Cedillo — all Latino Democrats — in which they plotted to expand their political power at the expense of Black voters during a realignment of council district boundaries.
Martinez and Herrera resigned within days of the disclosure of the recording, and Cedillo vanished from public sight. Cedillo's term ended Monday after he lost a reelection bid earlier this year, leaving de Leon as the only person involved in the scandal still holding his job.
It remains unknown who made the recording that was posted on a website, or why.
De Leon has apologized repeatedly but said he will not resign. He argues that he wants to continue working on homelessness, fallout from the pandemic and the threat of renter evictions in his district.
There is no legal avenue for his colleagues to remove him — the council can only suspend a member when criminal charges are pending.
Stripped of his ability to participate on council committees, facing widespread pressure to resign and after an extended absence from council meetings, de Leon has been maneuvering to return to the public sphere, despite being reviled by colleagues who say they cannot work with him.
Last week, he scuffled with an activist who heckled him at a holiday toy giveaway.
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| 2022-12-14T01:24:45
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| 2022-12-14T01:24:49
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Tory Lanez trial: Megan Thee Stallion testifies she was shot by rapper at party
LOS ANGELES - Megan Thee Stallion testified Tuesday that she froze when fellow musician Tory Lanez told her to "dance, bitch" and that he shot her in the feet after she got out of an SUV in the Hollywood Hills nearly 2 1/2 years ago following a pool party at Kylie Jenner's home.
"I'm in shock. I'm scared. I can't believe he's shooting at me," she said of her fellow rapper.
Lanez -- whose real name is Daystar Peterson -- is charged with one count each of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, discharging a firearm with gross negligence and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle, along with allegations that he personally used a firearm and inflicted great bodily injury on her shortly before 4:30 a.m. July 12, 2020.
In a packed downtown Los Angeles courtroom, Megan Thee Stallion said she could see Lanez holding the gun and pointing it at her and saw him shooting the gun "after he said, `Dance, bitch."'
The rapper -- whose real name is Megan Pete -- said she felt "shock" and "hurt" and saw blood when she looked at her feet.
She said she felt pain in both of her feet, but agreed to get back in the vehicle with Lanez and two other people because she was wearing a thong bikini and felt like her manager would know what to do if she was able to get to him.
"He started apologizing," she said of Lanez's conduct after the shooting.
She testified that Lanez offered her $1 million not to say anything and that he said he couldn't go to jail because he was already on probation -- the latter of which defense attorney George Mgdesyan told jurors was simply not the case.
"I did not know he had a gun that night," she said, when asked if she knew Lanez to have guns.
Megan Thee Stallion said the vehicle was stopped soon afterward by police, who ordered all of the occupants out as her feet were still bleeding. She said she told police that she had stepped on glass when they began questioning her.
RELATED: Megan Thee Stallion says Tory Lanez offered her $1M to keep quiet about alleged shooting
"At this time, we were at the height of police brutality with George Floyd," she said, adding that she didn't want to see anybody die and that it was "not really acceptable" in the Black community to cooperate with police.
She told jurors that she was taken by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and that doctors discovered bullet fragments in both of her feet, which required surgery to remove.
"I couldn't walk for a while," she said. "I still have nerve damage. I can't really feel the side of my left foot. The back of my feet are always sore, but I just push through it."
She said she subsequently received a series of text messages from Lanez, and said she wondered, "Why are you bothering me? ... You know you shot me."
When Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta asked if she was nervous about being in court, she said, "I just don't feel good. I can't believe I have to come up here and do this."
The female rapper's voice choked with emotion when she was asked if she knew Lanez, saying she felt like she was looking for people to fill the void after her mother's death and that she felt she had a lot in common with him.
She said she had texted him to come to Jenner's party and subsequently decided she wanted to leave when her hair had "started to look crazy" and her wig started slipping, and that he didn't want to leave.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE:
- Rapper Tory Lanez ordered to stay away from Megan Thee Stallion
- Rapper Megan Thee Stallion says she was injured during shooting in Hollywood
"He had an attitude," she said of his subsequent mood in the vehicle, which she said provoked an argument in which he allegedly called her and her then-best friend "bitches" and "hoes."
She said she initially asked to be let out of the vehicle in Hollywood and got back inside because she realized she was "literally in the peak of being famous and I have on a thong," and heard Lanez and her friend "screaming to the top of their lungs" at each other and subsequently asked again to be let out of the vehicle moments before she was shot.
She said she felt like she "really rubbed him the wrong way" with her comment about his career in the music industry before she got out of the vehicle.
In his opening statement Monday, Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott told jurors that the prosecution will ask the panel to "hold the defendant accountable" and find him guilty as charged.
Within about five minutes of the shooting, a female friend who was with Megan Thee Stallion texted one of the rapper's security guards, "Help," "Tory shot meg," and "911," the prosecutor said, and police subsequently found the gun still warm to the touch on the floorboard near where Lanez had been seated, according to Bott.
Lanez and the rapper's female friend, who was nearby at the time of the shooting, both later tested positive for gunshot residue, the deputy district attorney said.
In a subsequent phone call, Lanez "profusely apologized for his actions" and claimed he was "just too drunk," Bott told jurors.
Lanez's attorney -- who said he expects the jury to acquit his client after they finish hearing the case -- urged the panel to keep an open mind and said jurors are going to have to judge whether his client's accuser is "being truthful."
The defense attorney said it is his job to show them that "she's lying." He called it a "case about jealousy," telling jurors that the two women had gotten into an argument while in the SUV and that a neighbor reported witnessing a fistfight between the women after the vehicle stopped on Nichols Canyon Road.
The defense lawyer told jurors that his client subsequently apologized in a jailhouse phone call to the female rapper's friend for having a sexual relationship with both women and disclosing it, with no mention being made of the shooting.
He questioned why the other woman who had been in the vehicle would have had gunshot residue on her if she wasn't the person who fired the shots and said police failed to test the gun to check if her DNA could be found on the weapon.
Lanez's attorney said the most important things for jurors to determine will be who got out of the vehicle, who was fighting and who fired the gun.
He said he expected jurors to acquit his client after they hear the entire case.
Lanez, 30, remains out of custody on a $350,000 bond and walked into the courtroom while holding hands with his young son. The rapper had been under house arrest and under electronic monitoring while awaiting trial, but those restrictions were lifted last week by Superior Court Judge David Herriford.
At a hearing last year in which Lanez was ordered to stand trial, Los Angeles Police Department Detective Ryan Stogner testified that no one other than Megan Thee Stallion heard the alleged remark, "Dance, bitch."
She initially told officers and doctors she had not been shot and that broken glass had caused the injuries to her feet, according to the detective.
She told the detective she was "extremely scared and embarrassed," was "scared he was going to get in trouble" and was concerned the police might shoot him, but was "sincere," "visibly distraught" and "crying" when she subsequently admitted Lanez had shot her, Stogner testified.
In a video posted on Instagram Live following the shooting, Megan Thee Stallion said, "Tory shot me. You shot me and you got your publicist and your people are lying ... Stop lying."
She said police officers drove her to a hospital, where she underwent surgery, and added she was "incredibly grateful to be alive."
In an op-ed published in The New York Times, she wrote that she was "recently the victim of an act of violence by a man" and that she was initially silent about what had happened "out of fear for myself and my friends."
"Even as a victim, I have been met with skepticism and judgment," she wrote. "The way people have publicly questioned and debated whether I played a role in my own violent assault proves that my fears about discussing what happened were, unfortunately, warranted."
The rapper gained fame in part through freestyling videos shared widely on Instagram. Her song "Savage" went viral on TikTok and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in May 2020, while her provocative collaboration with Cardi B on "WAP" garnered her more attention.
In a posting last year on Twitter, Lanez wrote, "I have all faith in God to show that ... love to all my fans and people that have stayed true to me & know my heart ... a charge is not a conviction."
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| 2022-12-14T01:24:50
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska lawmaker may be unfit to hold office because he’s a member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group that has either advocated for or engaged in concrete action to overthrow the U.S. government, a lawyer said Tuesday in opening arguments for a case against state Rep. David Eastman.
“We are going to present overwhelming evidence on both those elements,” said Goriune Dudukgian, a lawyer with an Anchorage civil rights law firm. Dudukgian represents Randall Kowalke, a Wasilla resident whose lawsuit seeks to disqualify Eastman from holding office.
The bench trial before Superior Court Judge Jack McKenna will determine whether Eastman, a Wasilla Republican, will be allowed to be seated in the Legislature next month after winning reelection last month. McKenna earlier ordered the state Division of Elections not to certify the results of the race pending an outcome in this case.
Kowalke’s lawsuit points to a provision in the Alaska Constitution stating that no one who “advocates, or who aids or belongs to any party or organization or association which advocates, the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United States or of the State shall be qualified to hold” public office.
Stewart Rhodes, a founder of the Oath Keepers, and Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs were convicted last month of seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol for what prosecutors called a violent plot to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory. They were among 33 Oath Keepers charged after the insurrection, Dudukgian said.
Eastman, represented by attorney Joe Miller, has admitted to being in Washington, D.C., that day, but only to witness an address from then-President Donald Trump that preceded the attack on the Capitol.
Eastman said he did not take part in the riot, and that he has not been accused of any crime.
Miller did not give opening arguments Tuesday, and chose to deliver those before he presents the defense’s case.
Eastman is a member of the Oath Keepers and has contributed more than $1,000 in support of the group, Dudukgian said.
“And even after the events of the Jan. 6 insurrection and the recent conviction of founder Stewart Rhodes, he still has not taken any steps to resign his membership or renounce his membership, either publicly or privately,” Dudukgian said.
He said they would present evidence that the Oath Keepers combined extremist rhetoric about the insurrection with seditious conduct, and claimed the group would fight either with or without Trump’s support.
“And on Jan. 6, they did exactly what they said they were going to do,” Dudukgian said, later adding: “They had a singular purpose, which was to stop the transfer of presidential power.”
Dudukgian’s first two witnesses were to be experts on terrorism who have studied the Oath Keepers extensively.
Miller objected to the plaintiff's selection of experts, saying they should only bring in people who could testify to the facts of the case.
“They would have subpoenaed, for example, various Oath Keepers, they would have subpoenaed people that had actually witnessed what happened on Jan. 6 or any other individual that had evidence that they believe relevant to the ultimate issue in the case, and that is whether or not the Oath Keepers is, in fact, an organization that advocates by force of violence the overthrow of the government,” Miller said.
McKenna said he agreed with Miller that as a general proposition, an expert cannot be used as a conduit for hearsay, but he said he needs to see the evidence and hear the testimony before deciding on Miller’s standing objection.
Eastman, who sat with Miller in a Palmer courtroom, is on a list of witnesses that Miller plans to call, along with Oath Keepers members.
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https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Trial-starts-Alaska-lawmaker-with-Oath-Keepers-17652303.php
| 2022-12-14T01:24:52
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Two California cities top list of metro areas homebuyers are leaving
SAN FRANCISCO - A new report has listed San Francisco and Los Angeles as the two top U.S. cities in which homebuyers were looking to leave.
The analysis, by real estate company Redfin, found people were opting to leave expensive coastal areas and seeking homes in more affordable regions, as part of an ongoing trend that gathered steam during the pandemic, as remote work became commonplace and as home prices rose.
SEE ALSO: San Francisco renters offered big buyouts from property owners as housing shortage continues
SEE ALSO: San Jose moves forward with plans to build 32,000 housing units
The report said that almost a quarter of U.S. homebuyers in metro areas sought to leave their city in the three months ending in October.
"That’s up from roughly 18% in 2019, before the pandemic ushered in the remote-work era that gave many Americans more flexibility to relocate," the study said.
The report looked at what it called "net inflow" and "net outflow." Inflow was calculated by taking the number of Redfin.com home searchers looking to move into a metro area, minus the number of searchers looking to leave.
Outflow was calculated by the number of users seeking to leave a metro area, minus the number of searchers looking to move in.
San Francisco had the biggest net outflow of 35,800, with 24% of the area's prospective homebuyers seeking to live elsewhere.
And San Francisco's loss appeared to be a gain for Sacramento, as California's capital city was the number one in-state destination for those looking to leave the City by the Bay.
The real estate group noted that homes in the Sacramento metro area cost less than half of those in the Bay Area.
Sacramento was not only the most popular destination for those looking to leave San Francisco, it topped the list as the overall most popular destination for U.S. homebuyers looking to relocate.
Los Angeles had the second-largest net outflow of 34,100, with 20% of local users looking to leave the area.
Los Angeles city skyline. LA was #2 in Redfin's list of top metro areas homebuyers were leaving.
The top in-state destination for those wanting to leave LA was San Diego.
Out of state, it was Las Vegas, where the typical home cost $410,000 in October, roughly half the price of the typical home in Los Angeles.
Top 10 Metros Homebuyers Are Leaving, by Net Outflow
- San Francisco
- Los Angeles
- New York
- Washington, D.C.
- Boston
- Chicago
- Detroit
- Denver
- Seattle
- Philadelphia
Top 10 Metros Homebuyers Are Moving Into, by Net Inflow
- Sacramento
- Las Vegas
- Miami
- San Diego
- Tampa, FL
- Phoenix, AZ
- Cape Coral, FL
- North Port-Sarasota, FL
- Dallas
- Orlando, FL
Source: Redfin
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| 2022-12-14T01:24:56
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. special envoy for South Sudan urged the country’s leaders on Tuesday to intervene to halt clashes and sexual violence and urged that a two-year delay in holding elections not be used as “a holiday break.”
Nicholas Haysom told the U.N. Security Council that while some noticeable progress has been made in implementing a 2018 peace agreement, key deadlines have been missed amid a worsening humanitarian crisis. According to forecasts, 9.4 million of the country’s roughly 12 million people will need humanitarian aid next year, which he called “an alarming figure.”
There were high hopes when oil-rich South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long conflict. But the country slid into civil war in December 2013 largely based on ethnic divisions when forces loyal to President Salva Kiir battled those loyal to Vice President Riek Machar.
Tens of thousands of people were killed in the war, which ended with the 2018 peace agreement that brought Kiir and Machar together in a government of national unity which was supposed to hold elections before February 2023.
The Security Council meeting followed last week’s announcement that South Sudan’s ruling party endorsed Kiir -- the country’s only president since it gained independence -- for another term in elections now scheduled for December 2024.
Haysom said legal and technical arrangements for elections should be finalized soon.
A first step has been taken to reconstitute the National Elections Commission, which will manage the electoral process, he said, but the issue of quotas for women and the disabled remain unresolved. He also expressed concern that deadlines for a political parties act, a reconstituted constitutional review commission, and the establishment of a constitutional drafting committee have all been missed.
“We are concerned that delays are already having a domino effect on subsequent key benchmarks,” Haysom said.
On the security front, the U.N. envoy expressed concern at clashes among armed militias which are causing displacement in northern Jonglei and Upper Nile states, and worries about intercommunal violence in northern Warrap state and ongoing cattle raiding and migration-related conflicts in the three Equatoria states.
Clashes along the strategically important Nile River corridor have “taken on an ethnic dimension, and I condemn the human rights violations and abuses that have included killings, conflict-related sexual violence, pillaging and large-scale displacements,” he said.
Haysom, who heads the U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, said that following the graduation of the first contingent of unified forces the government must now take action to deploy them to hotspots “to serve as a truly national army.”
He stressed that “the worsening humanitarian crisis … is a reminder of the imperative for the parties to deliver on their commitments in the peace agreement.”
U.S. political counselor John Kelley echoed Haysom’s call for the country’s transitional leaders to deliver on the peace agreement and address immediate issues including the ongoing violence in Upper Nile and Jonglei states, and the dire humanitarian situation.
The violence in Upper Nile reportedly killed an estimated 500 civilians and displaced another 15,000, he said.
“It is abundantly clear that South Sudan’s leaders need to resolve this crisis,” Kelley said. “We urgently call on South Sudan’s leaders to act now and end the violence” as well as reported human rights violations including sexual violence and the rape and gang rape of girls as young as 8-years-old.
On the political front, Kelley said the United States reiterates its disappointment at the decision by South Sudan’s leaders to extend the transition and delay elections for another two years, “despite failing over the past four years to deliver fully on the commitments they made in the 2018 revitalized peace agreement.”
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| 2022-12-14T01:24:58
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What are the odds of a white Christmas?
Are you dreaming of a white Christmas?
We all know the classic Bing Crosby song, but what are the odds of this song becoming a reality where you'll be spending the holiday?
To answer that question, FOX Weather has compiled the map below, illustrating the historical probability of a white Christmas across the U.S.
HOW ‘WHITE CHRISTMAS’ BECAME AN ICONIC HOLIDAY SONG
In order to qualify for a white Christmas, there must either be at least 1 inch of snow on the ground on Christmas morning or falling snow must accumulate to at least 0.1 inches on Dec. 25. This is the same criteria used by the National Weather Service.
The historical probability of a white Christmas. (FOX Weather)
The map is based on historical weather data averaged over the 30-year period from 1991 to 2020, the most recent climatological averages provided by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.
EXTREME WEATHER TAKES A TOLL ON CHRISTMAS TREE SUPPLY
In the Lower 48, the northern and central Rockies, California's Sierra Nevada and the Washington and Oregon Cascades have the highest odds of encountering snow on Christmas Day. The probability of a white Christmas is as high as 90% to 100% in the highest peaks of those mountain ranges. Aspen, Colorado, is just one of about a dozen locations that can brag about having a 100% chance of a white Christmas, according to NOAA.
There's also a 90% to 100% chance of a white Christmas in portions of northern North Dakota, northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
The odds of Christmas Day snow begin to diminish as both elevation and latitude become lower. However, there's still a 50% or higher probability of a white Christmas across much of the nation's northern tier, from the northern Plains to parts of the Upper Midwest, Great Lakes and interior Northeast.
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Madison in Wisconsin and Burlington in Vermont each have a 60% to 75% chance of a white Christmas in an average year. The odds drop below 50% in cities such as Chicago and Detroit.
A view of the Christmas tree in the Rockefeller Center on December 17, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images)
A white Christmas happens only 10% to 20% of the time along the Interstate 95 corridor of the Northeast.
New York City has at least 1 inch of snow on the ground on Christmas morning about once every six years, on average. Farther north, in Boston, the frequency increases slightly to about once every five years. However, white Christmases in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington only happen about once a decade.
Most areas along the West and Gulf coasts and in the Deep South have less than a 10% chance of Christmas Day snow because temperatures in those regions don't typically get cold enough to produce measurable snow so early in the winter (if it snows at all during the season).
HOW WEATHER IMPACTS CHRISTMAS LIGHT DISPLAYS
Keep in mind that the statistics provided in this story are simply averages. The weather pattern that sets up each December can increase the chances of a white Christmas in some areas while decreasing those odds in other areas.
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OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Aledmys Díaz and Jace Peterson, who both can play the infield and outfield, reached agreements with the Oakland Athletics on two-year contracts through the 2024 season.
The A's announced the deals Tuesday, one day after trading away catcher Sean Murphy to the Braves in a three-team swap. Oakland acquired catcher Manny Piña and pitching prospects Kyle Muller, Freddy Tarnok and Royber Salinas from Atlanta and outfield prospect Esteury Ruiz from Milwaukee.
Also Tuesday, the A’s designated infielders Ernie Clement and Yonny Hernandez for assignment.
Díaz started games at six different positions for Houston this year — 22 in left field, 18 at second base, 16 at shortstop, eight at third base, seven at designated hitter and five at first base. He batted .243 with 12 home runs and 38 RBIs and a .691 OPS in 92 games for the World Series champion Astros.
The left-handed-hitting Peterson hit .236 with a career-best eight homers and 34 RBIs played in 113 games for the Brewers in 2022 and like Díaz is versatile: He started 67 games at third, nine in right field, three at first and two in left, three games at second and even pitched once.
Oakland finished 60-102 in manager Mark Kotsay’s first year and missed the playoffs for a second straight year following three consecutive berths and an AL West title during the coronavirus-shortened 2020 season.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Brock Purdy had little time to celebrate a successful first career start.
Purdy is trying to heal from injuries to his oblique and ribs while preparing for a trip to notoriously tough Seattle on a short week for the San Francisco 49ers.
Purdy got injured on a scramble on the second drive of Sunday's 35-7 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers but was able to stay in the game and threw two TD passes and ran for another score.
Purdy said he was quite sore Monday and is projected to be limited at a light practice on Tuesday.
“I haven’t been out to practice or tried throwing the football or anything yet,” he said. “So it’s been how I feel walking around or trying to do movements in the pool. I can still jog and run and that kind of stuff but I haven’t tried playing football yet."
Coach Kyle Shanahan said Purdy was not in danger of making the injury more serious by playing Thursday night, saying it was mostly a matter of dealing with the pain.
Shanahan said he would wait until the day of the game before making a final decision on whether Purdy will be able to get the start, but signs point to Purdy getting the nod.
“We’ll find out as these two days go,” Shanahan said. “We’ll not try to figure that out today or tomorrow. It’ll be Thursday when it’s the best chance to be known.”
Assuming Purdy will start, he will try to build on his dazzling debut start. He became the first rookie in the Super Bowl era to throw at least two TD passes, run for a score and post a passer rating of at least 125 in his first career start.
Purdy showed the ability to get the ball out quickly to his playmakers as well as create big gains when plays broke down, showing impressive confidence for a rookie so overlooked that he wasn't taken until the final pick of the NFL draft.
“Everybody can feed off of that,” tackle Mike McGlinchey said about Purdy's confidence. “I think it’s certainly a big deal. He’s going to continue to get better every time he goes out and plays. He has this opportunity now that he can take and run with it. I’m so excited for him, so excited for the way he’s played, so excited for the things he’s going to help us do.”
The Niners hope Purdy can help them win this week in Seattle to clinch the NFC West title.
San Francisco has lost nine of its last 10 trips to Seattle, with seven of the nine losses coming by double digits. The 49ers' QBs have posted a pedestrian 79.7 passer rating in those games, with the only win coming in the 2019 finale when San Francisco clinched the division.
“I don't think I've ever been anywhere louder than there,” Shanahan said. “I know how their fans are and how the stadium is. You got to be ready for it. You can’t expect to hear, not just at the line of scrimmage but also in the huddle a number of times. It’s a big difference playing there.”
It's a tough spot for Purdy's first road start in the NFL. He said he would draw on his experience in college when he played in loud stadiums in the Big 12.
Purdy said he's been told Seattle is right there with Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City as the most hostile environments in the NFL.
“I’m excited for it," he said. "All these guys have played here a bunch of times. So I’m just hearing them out on what's good or not in terms of communication and operation. We’ll be ready to roll for it.”
NOTES: Shanahan said WR Deebo Samuel would likely miss three weeks with injuries to his knee and ankle. ... DT Hassan Ridgeway (pectoral), DT Kevin Givens (knee), CB Samuel Womack (concussion protocol) and S Tarvarius Moore (knee) did not practice. ... RB Christian McCaffrey (knee), CB Ambry Thomas (ankle), DL Arik Armstead (foot, ankle) and DL Kerry Hyder Jr. (ankle) were all limited. ... The 49ers signed DL Mike Dwumfour to the practice squad and placed CB Dontae Johnson (torn ACL) on the practice squad IR.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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What is nuclear fusion? Recent advance in research could be a clean-energy breakthrough
The major advance in fusion research announced in Washington on Tuesday was decades in coming, with scientists for the first time able to engineer a reaction that produced more power than was used to ignite it.
Using powerful lasers to focus enormous energy on a miniature capsule half the size of a BB, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California started a reaction that produced about 1.5 times more energy than was contained in the light used to produce it.
There are decades more to wait before fusion could one day — maybe — be used to produce electricity in the real world. But the promise of fusion is enticing. If harnessed, it could produce nearly limitless, carbon-free energy to supply humanity’s electricity needs without raising global temperatures and worsening climate change.
At the press conference in Washington, the scientists celebrated.
"So, this is pretty cool," said Marvin "Marv" Adams, the National Nuclear Security Administration deputy administrator for defense programs.
"Fusion fuel in the capsule got squeezed, fusion reactions started. This had all happened before – 100 times before – but last week for the first time they designed this experiment so that the fusion fuel stayed hot enough, dense enough and round enough for long enough that it ignited," said Adams. "And it produced more energy than the lasers had deposited."
Here’s a look at exactly what nuclear fusion is, and some of the difficulties in turning it into the cheap and carbon-free energy source that scientists hope it can be.
WHAT IS NUCLEAR FUSION?
Look up, and it’s happening right above you — nuclear fusion reactions power the sun and other stars.
The reaction happens when two light nuclei merge to form a single heavier nucleus. Because the total mass of that single nucleus is less than the mass of the two original nuclei, the leftover mass is energy that is released in the process, according to the Department of Energy.
In the case of the sun, its intense heat — millions of degrees Celsius — and the pressure exerted by its gravity allow atoms that would otherwise repel each other to fuse.
Scientists have long understood how nuclear fusion has worked and have been trying to duplicate the process on Earth as far back as the 1930s. Current efforts focus on fusing a pair of hydrogen isotopes — deuterium and tritium — according to the Department of Energy, which says that particular combination releases "much more energy than most fusion reactions" and requires less heat to do so.
HOW VALUABLE COULD THIS BE?
Daniel Kammen, a professor of energy and society at the University of California at Berkeley, said nuclear fusion offers the possibility of "basically unlimited" fuel if the technology can be made commercially viable. The elements needed are available in seawater.
It’s also a process that doesn’t produce the radioactive waste of nuclear fission, Kammen said.
Crossing the line of net energy gain marks a major achievement, said Carolyn Kuranz, a University of Michigan professor and experimental plasma physicist.
WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 13: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories Director Dr. Kim Budil (2nd L) and National Nuclear Security Administration Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs Dr. Marvin Adams hold a news conference at the Department of
"Of course, now people are thinking, well, how do we go to 10 times more or 100 times more? There’s always some next step," Kuranz said. "But I think that’s a clear line of, yes, we have achieved ignition in the laboratory."
HOW ARE SCIENTISTS TRYING TO DO THIS?
One way scientists have tried to recreate nuclear fusion involves what’s called a tokamak — a doughnut-shaped vacuum chamber that uses powerful magnets to turn fuel into a superheated plasma (between 150 million and 300 million degrees Celsius) where fusion may occur.
The Livermore lab uses a different technique, with researchers firing a 192-beam laser at a small capsule filled with deuterium-tritium fuel. The lab reported that an August 2021 test produced 1.35 megajoules of fusion energy — about 70% of the energy fired at the target. The lab said several subsequent experiments showed declining results, but researchers believed they had identified ways to improve the quality of the fuel capsule and the lasers’ symmetry.
WHY IS FUSION SO HARD?
It takes more than extreme heat and pressure. It also takes precision. The energy from the lasers must be applied precisely to counteract the outward force of the fusion fuel, according to Stephanie Diem, an engineering physics professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
And that’s just to prove net energy gain is possible. It’s even harder to produce electricity in a power plant.
For example, the lab’s lasers can only fire a few times a day. To viably produce energy, they would need to fire rapidly and capsules would need to be inserted multiple times a minute, or even faster, Kuranz said.
Another challenge is to increase efficiency, said Jeremy Chittenden, a professor at Imperial College in London specializing in plasma physics. The lasers used at Livermore require a lot of electrical energy, and researchers need to figure out a way to reproduce their results in a much more cost-effective way, he said.
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| 2022-12-14T01:25:09
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Free agent right-hander Ross Stripling reached agreement on a $25 million, two-year contract with the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday.
He expects to be a starter in a rotation featuring Logan Webb, newcomer Sean Manaea, Alex Cobb and Alex Wood. Stripling's contract includes a $5 million signing bonus and allows him to opt out after next season, when he will earn $7.5 million. He has a $12.5 million salary for 2024.
Stripling had Giants manager Gabe Kapler as his minor league coordinator with the Dodgers, San Francisco outfielder Joc Pederson as a roommate in the Los Angeles farm system and Giants executive Farhan Zaidi as general manager.
The 32-year-old pitcher had career highs of 10 wins, a 3.01 ERA, 24 starts and 134 1/3 innings with the Blue Jays last season. He went 9-4 with a 2.92 ERA as a starter and also 1-0 with a 4.09 ERA in eight relief outings.
Stripling's deal also calls for an annual donation of $62,500 to the Giants Community Fund.
Right-hander Miguel Yajure cleared waivers and was assigned outright to Triple-A Sacramento, clearing room on the 40-man roster for Stripling.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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Widow sues FedEx, claims faulty tires caused fiery crash that killed husband
MOBILE, Ala. - A widow is suing FedEx, claiming the company’s faulty tires caused a deadly crash that killed her husband.
Kelsie Platt filed a lawsuit against FedEx, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, and its subsidiary, Wingfoot Commerical Tire Systems, with the Mobile County Circuit Court in Alabama.
According to documents obtained by FOX Television Stations, 32-year-old Hamilton Platt was killed on September 21.
Court documents said the FedEx truck driver was en route on Interstate 10 when the left front tire tread separated and caused a "catastrophic failure."
RELATED: Deadly crash on Cross Bronx Expressway
The driver then stopped the truck in the middle of the interstate as opposed to moving the vehicle to the shoulder lane.
Kelsie’s lawyer, Ed Rowan, alleged her husband was driving two cars behind the truck when the vehicle in front of him swerved to avoid hitting the FedEx truck.
Rowan said that caused Hamilton to rear-end the FedEx truck which sparked a fire. Rowan said Hamilton survived the initial impact but was "aware of his impending death, and that he was burning alive."
His widow is suing on multiple counts, including wrongful death. According to WPMI, Kelsie said she learned about the crash on social media.
"My son isn't doing that great," she told the outlet. "He doesn't understand heaven and that daddy is in heaven. There for a little while, he was angry with the idea of Jesus and God that they were keeping him up there."
FedEx has released a statement regarding the lawsuit.
"We continue to extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Mr. Platt," the company said in a statement to FOX Television Stations. "We have been fully cooperating with investigating authorities. We will defend the lawsuit."
The couple shared two children, ages 5 and 7.
This story was reported from Los Angeles.
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RENTON, Wash. (AP) — Coming off perhaps his worst performance of the season, Geno Smith decided he’s been a little too greedy of late.
As in too many risky throws by the Seattle Seahawks quarterback.
“I think I’ve been too aggressive as of late and so I’ve got to kind of get back to what I was doing early on, which was just taking what they give me and allowing us to have a complementary football team, and we all play together and not feel like we’re just trying to push the envelope or trying to push our limits and see what we can do,” Smith said on Tuesday. “Because we know what we can do, but we got to stay on schedule.”
It’s a fine balance Smith is trying to navigate right now while the Seahawks are struggling in multiple areas ahead of Thursday night’s matchup against San Francisco. Seattle’s defense has become a sieve and unable to stop opponents from running the ball.
At the same time, injuries have left Seattle’s run game ineffective, putting even more of the offensive load on Smith’s right arm.
The results have been mixed. In last Sunday’s loss to the Panthers, Smith threw two interceptions for the first time this season and on both occasions forced throws into dangerous situations that he’s avoided most of the season.
He still threw three TDs in the 30-24 loss, but his completion rate was also a season-low 58.3% after four straight games where it was 69% or higher.
Smith said there’s no specific reason as to why he feels he’s been more aggressive other than last week when the Seahawks fell behind 17-0 and spent the final three quarters trying to rally.
“No specific reason. Just playing to win. And obviously we were down early in that game, and part of that was my mistake early on,” said Smith, who was intercepted on the first offensive play for Seattle.
“So when you are trying to get back into a game you don’t want to throw check-downs and feel like you’re giving up. You’re trying to make a big play or get things going and get some momentum.
"For me again, I just got to go back to what I was doing, which I haven’t really changed much, but I have been a little more aggressive than usual. I just got to be a little smarter.”
Smith’s first interception against the Panthers came when he tried to force a pass to Tyler Lockett in coverage. The second happened on a play Smith believed the Panthers had jumped offside. No flag was thrown and a risky pass was picked off and led to more points for Carolina.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. It was a really devastating play for us for that to happen,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said.
And the task won’t get easier this week for Smith with a visit from San Francisco. Smith completed 80% of his passes when the teams met in September, but the 24 completions went for only 197 yards. He was also intercepted once and sacked twice.
It was after that game that Carroll made note of needing to take any restrictions off what Seattle could do offensively, and following that declaration Smith saw his season take off.
Now the challenge is rediscovering that form before Seattle’s playoff hopes slip any further.
“It really should just be me out there playing and doing the right thing, every single play,” Smith said. “It really comes down to that.”
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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| 2022-12-14T01:25:18
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Cardinals QB Kyler Murray tears ACL, will miss rest of the season
GLENDALE, Ariz. - Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray will miss the rest of the season after tearing his ACL during Monday night's game against the New England Patriots.
Murray went down on the third play of the game. He was flushed out of the pocket and running to his right when he tried to juke past a Patriots defender, but tumbled to the grass in obvious pain.
Players from both teams surrounded the quarterback before he was carted off the field with a towel draped over his head.
"Minor setback for a major comeback," the Cardinals tweeted on Dec. 13. "We know @K1 will be back and better than ever. Heal soon QB1."
In a press conference Tuesday, head coach Kliff Kingsbury said "he'll be done for the year" and that it's "tough to see."
The Patriots rallied to win the game, 27-13.
GLENDALE, ARIZONA - DECEMBER 12: Kyler Murray #1 of the Arizona Cardinals is carted off the field after being injured against the New England Patriots during the first quarter of the game at State Farm Stadium on December 12, 2022 in Glendale, Arizon (Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images)
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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The streets of Argentina turned into a party Tuesday as the national team beat Croatia by a comfortable 3-0 and earned this soccer-crazed South American country a spot in the World Cup final.
Fans poured onto the streets of the capital of Buenos Aires as soon as the match ended, with people waving Argentina flags out of their cars while others jumped and sang in joy amid a sea of wearing the national team’s jersey.
Earlier, Buenos Aires had come to a standstill on what was a scorching summer afternoon as fans packed cafes, restaurants and public plazas, where giant screens followed the exploits of the Lionel Messi-led team.
“I’m in complete ecstasy,” said Emiliano Adam, 31, who works at an advertising agency and was celebrating in the streets of Buenos Aires while wearing the country's flag as a cape. “This is the first match that didn't make me suffer, the first time I could enjoy a match from beginning to end."
Argentina will now play the last match of the World Cup against either France or Morocco, who are facing off Wednesday.
With that final match still days away, Tuesday turned into a day of joy as thousands of people descended on the capital’s iconic Obelisk.
The agonizing start of the tournament for Argentina was followed by a string of victories that have brought some much-needed joy to a country stuck in an economic standstill with one of the world’s highest inflation rates, closing in on almost 100% per year, and where close to four of every 10 people live in poverty.
“We’re all super excited, it’s been so long since we’ve lived a happiness like this. It’s beautiful, I mean look at this,” said Laila Desmery, a 27-year-old actress, as she pointed to people dancing and celebrating on the street. "It’s really unexplainable the joy that we’re going to be living through in the next few days.”
The sky-high hopes for the Argentina team only increased here after the quarter-final against the Netherlands, an agonizing match that ended in a penalty shootout and led to a collective feeling the team that had shocked the world by losing its opening match against Saudi Arabia had finally found its groove.
“This was the antithesis of the last match, we won easily, with ample advantage and without moments of so much tension and stress,” said Valentina González, 31, a social media manager.
Mariano Balestrasse said he was particularly proud of how the national team “has improved significantly every day and in every match you could see an improvement.”
In that sense, the shocking loss against Saudi Arabia “helped consolidate the team,” the 28-year-old architect said.
“This team connected a lot with the people, you can tell they’re very united and they transmit that,” said Abe Pérez, a 52-year-old civil servant.
In a traditional café in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo, those who had been nervously staring at the television screen exploded in jubilation when Messi scored a penalty kick, ending what had been an agonizing goalless 33 minutes.
“Messi, Messi, Messi,” the crowd started chanting as they moved their arms in a worshipping ovation.
It was only five minutes later, before the crowd had even had a chance to cool down that Julián Álvarez scored an impressive goal, taking the score to 2-0.
By the second half, the crowd was ecstatic and when Álvarez, with an assist from Messi, scored a third goal, the joy overflowed with people jumping on chairs, kissing and hugging.
“Holding Messi by the hand, we’re going to go all the way,” the crowd chanted.
Tuesday's victory and reaching the World Cup final was even sweeter due to the initial difficulties that the team faced in the tournament, González said.
“It seems that it always has to be difficult to get there, but we get there and we win. It’s as if there is no winning without suffering,” the 27-year-old said.
The initial stumble gives more “mysticism” to the country now reaching the final, Desmery said.
“Many people say that we like to suffer because if we don't suffer it's as if nothing is happening, and, well, this is a little like that," Desmery said. “As Argentines, we like to feel a lot and then the celebration is three, four times as large.”
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SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Brock Purdy had little time to celebrate a successful first career start.
Purdy is trying to heal from injuries to his oblique and ribs while preparing for a trip to notoriously tough Seattle on a short week for the San Francisco 49ers.
Purdy got injured on a scramble on the second drive of Sunday's 35-7 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers but was able to stay in the game and threw two TD passes and ran for another score.
Purdy said he was quite sore Monday and is projected to be limited at a light practice on Tuesday.
“I haven’t been out to practice or tried throwing the football or anything yet,” he said. “So it’s been how I feel walking around or trying to do movements in the pool. I can still jog and run and that kind of stuff but I haven’t tried playing football yet."
Coach Kyle Shanahan said Purdy was not in danger of making the injury more serious by playing Thursday night, saying it was mostly a matter of dealing with the pain.
Shanahan said he would wait until the day of the game before making a final decision on whether Purdy will be able to get the start, but signs point to Purdy getting the nod.
“We’ll find out as these two days go,” Shanahan said. “We’ll not try to figure that out today or tomorrow. It’ll be Thursday when it’s the best chance to be known.”
Assuming Purdy will start, he will try to build on his dazzling debut start. He became the first rookie in the Super Bowl era to throw at least two TD passes, run for a score and post a passer rating of at least 125 in his first career start.
Purdy showed the ability to get the ball out quickly to his playmakers as well as create big gains when plays broke down, showing impressive confidence for a rookie so overlooked that he wasn't taken until the final pick of the NFL draft.
“Everybody can feed off of that,” tackle Mike McGlinchey said about Purdy's confidence. “I think it’s certainly a big deal. He’s going to continue to get better every time he goes out and plays. He has this opportunity now that he can take and run with it. I’m so excited for him, so excited for the way he’s played, so excited for the things he’s going to help us do.”
The Niners hope Purdy can help them win this week in Seattle to clinch the NFC West title.
San Francisco has lost nine of its last 10 trips to Seattle, with seven of the nine losses coming by double digits. The 49ers' QBs have posted a pedestrian 79.7 passer rating in those games, with the only win coming in the 2019 finale when San Francisco clinched the division.
“I don't think I've ever been anywhere louder than there,” Shanahan said. “I know how their fans are and how the stadium is. You got to be ready for it. You can’t expect to hear, not just at the line of scrimmage but also in the huddle a number of times. It’s a big difference playing there.”
It's a tough spot for Purdy's first road start in the NFL. He said he would draw on his experience in college when he played in loud stadiums in the Big 12.
Purdy said he's been told Seattle is right there with Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City as the most hostile environments in the NFL.
“I’m excited for it," he said. "All these guys have played here a bunch of times. So I’m just hearing them out on what's good or not in terms of communication and operation. We’ll be ready to roll for it.”
NOTES: Shanahan said WR Deebo Samuel would likely miss three weeks with injuries to his knee and ankle. ... DT Hassan Ridgeway (pectoral), DT Kevin Givens (knee), CB Samuel Womack (concussion protocol) and S Tarvarius Moore (knee) did not practice. ... RB Christian McCaffrey (knee), CB Ambry Thomas (ankle), DL Arik Armstead (foot, ankle) and DL Kerry Hyder Jr. (ankle) were all limited. ... The 49ers signed DL Mike Dwumfour to the practice squad and placed CB Dontae Johnson (torn ACL) on the practice squad IR.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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Storm Prediction Ctr, Norman, OK Warnings, Watches and Advisories for Tuesday, December 13, 2022
_____
TORNADO WATCH
TORNADO WATCH OUTLINE UPDATE FOR WT 583
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
613 PM CST TUE DEC 13 2022
TORNADO WATCH 583 REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1000 PM CST FOR THE
FOLLOWING LOCATIONS
TX
. TEXAS COUNTIES INCLUDED ARE
ANGELINA JASPER NACOGDOCHES
NEWTON POLK SABINE
SAN AUGUSTINE SHELBY TRINITY
TYLER
...FLOOD ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 915 PM CST THIS EVENING...
* WHAT...Urban and small stream flooding caused by excessive
rainfall is expected.
* WHERE...Portions of northwest Louisiana and northeast Texas,
including the following counties and parishes, in northwest
Louisiana, Bossier, Caddo and Webster. In northeast Texas,
Harrison and Panola.
* WHEN...Until 915 PM CST.
* IMPACTS...Minor flooding in low-lying and poor drainage areas.
* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...
- At 614 PM CST, Doppler radar indicated heavy rain due to
thunderstorms. This will cause urban and small stream
flooding. Between 1 and 3 inches of rain have fallen.
- Additional rainfall amounts of 1 to 2 inches are expected
over the area. This additional rain will result in minor
flooding.
- Some locations that will experience flooding include...
Shreveport, Bossier City, Carthage, Haughton, Greenwood,
Blanchard, Waskom, Benton, Cotton Valley, Sarepta, Shongaloo,
Fosters, Eastwood, Elysian Fields, Deberry, Gary City,
Evergreen, Cross Lake, Barksdale Air Force Base and Ferguson.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
Turn around, don't drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood
deaths occur in vehicles.
Be especially cautious at night when it is harder to recognize the
dangers of flooding.
_____
Copyright 2022 AccuWeather
|
https://www.chron.com/weather/article/TX-Storm-Prediction-Ctr-Norman-OK-Warnings-17652298.php
| 2022-12-14T01:25:37
|
en
| 0.83628
|
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.
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https://sportspyder.com/cf/texas-am-aggies-football/articles/41862621
| 2022-12-14T01:25:37
|
en
| 0.738227
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Free agent right-hander Ross Stripling reached agreement on a $25 million, two-year contract with the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday.
He expects to be a starter in a rotation featuring Logan Webb, newcomer Sean Manaea, Alex Cobb and Alex Wood. Stripling's contract includes a $5 million signing bonus and allows him to opt out after next season, when he will earn $7.5 million. He has a $12.5 million salary for 2024.
Stripling had Giants manager Gabe Kapler as his minor league coordinator with the Dodgers, San Francisco outfielder Joc Pederson as a roommate in the Los Angeles farm system and Giants executive Farhan Zaidi as general manager.
The 32-year-old pitcher had career highs of 10 wins, a 3.01 ERA, 24 starts and 134 1/3 innings with the Blue Jays last season. He went 9-4 with a 2.92 ERA as a starter and also 1-0 with a 4.09 ERA in eight relief outings.
Stripling's deal also calls for an annual donation of $62,500 to the Giants Community Fund.
Right-hander Miguel Yajure cleared waivers and was assigned outright to Triple-A Sacramento, clearing room on the 40-man roster for Stripling.
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
|
https://www.myjournalcourier.com/sports/article/Righty-Stripling-reaches-25M-two-year-contract-17652251.php
| 2022-12-14T01:25:41
|
en
| 0.962976
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You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/tennessee-titans/articles/41862673
| 2022-12-14T01:25:43
|
en
| 0.738227
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RENTON, Wash. (AP) — Coming off perhaps his worst performance of the season, Geno Smith decided he’s been a little too greedy of late.
As in too many risky throws by the Seattle Seahawks quarterback.
“I think I’ve been too aggressive as of late and so I’ve got to kind of get back to what I was doing early on, which was just taking what they give me and allowing us to have a complementary football team, and we all play together and not feel like we’re just trying to push the envelope or trying to push our limits and see what we can do,” Smith said on Tuesday. “Because we know what we can do, but we got to stay on schedule.”
It’s a fine balance Smith is trying to navigate right now while the Seahawks are struggling in multiple areas ahead of Thursday night’s matchup against San Francisco. Seattle’s defense has become a sieve and unable to stop opponents from running the ball.
At the same time, injuries have left Seattle’s run game ineffective, putting even more of the offensive load on Smith’s right arm.
The results have been mixed. In last Sunday’s loss to the Panthers, Smith threw two interceptions for the first time this season and on both occasions forced throws into dangerous situations that he’s avoided most of the season.
He still threw three TDs in the 30-24 loss, but his completion rate was also a season-low 58.3% after four straight games where it was 69% or higher.
Smith said there’s no specific reason as to why he feels he’s been more aggressive other than last week when the Seahawks fell behind 17-0 and spent the final three quarters trying to rally.
“No specific reason. Just playing to win. And obviously we were down early in that game, and part of that was my mistake early on,” said Smith, who was intercepted on the first offensive play for Seattle.
“So when you are trying to get back into a game you don’t want to throw check-downs and feel like you’re giving up. You’re trying to make a big play or get things going and get some momentum.
"For me again, I just got to go back to what I was doing, which I haven’t really changed much, but I have been a little more aggressive than usual. I just got to be a little smarter.”
Smith’s first interception against the Panthers came when he tried to force a pass to Tyler Lockett in coverage. The second happened on a play Smith believed the Panthers had jumped offside. No flag was thrown and a risky pass was picked off and led to more points for Carolina.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. It was a really devastating play for us for that to happen,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said.
And the task won’t get easier this week for Smith with a visit from San Francisco. Smith completed 80% of his passes when the teams met in September, but the 24 completions went for only 197 yards. He was also intercepted once and sacked twice.
It was after that game that Carroll made note of needing to take any restrictions off what Seattle could do offensively, and following that declaration Smith saw his season take off.
Now the challenge is rediscovering that form before Seattle’s playoff hopes slip any further.
“It really should just be me out there playing and doing the right thing, every single play,” Smith said. “It really comes down to that.”
___
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
|
https://www.myjournalcourier.com/sports/article/Seattle-s-QB-Smith-worries-he-s-been-too-17652319.php
| 2022-12-14T01:25:47
|
en
| 0.984348
|
Storm Prediction Ctr, Norman, OK Warnings, Watches and Advisories for Tuesday, December 13, 2022
_____
TORNADO WATCH
TORNADO WATCH OUTLINE UPDATE FOR WT 583
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
653 PM CST TUE DEC 13 2022
TORNADO WATCH 583 REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1000 PM CST FOR THE
FOLLOWING LOCATIONS
TX
. TEXAS COUNTIES INCLUDED ARE
ANGELINA JASPER NACOGDOCHES
NEWTON POLK SABINE
SAN AUGUSTINE SHELBY TRINITY
TYLER
The National Weather Service has cancelled Tornado Watch 583 for
the following areas
In Texas this cancels 2 counties
In southeast Texas
Polk Trinity
This includes the cities of Corrigan, Groveton, Livingston,
and Trinity.
NEWTON SABINE SAN AUGUSTINE
SHELBY TYLER
_____
Copyright 2022 AccuWeather
|
https://www.chron.com/weather/article/TX-Storm-Prediction-Ctr-Norman-OK-Warnings-17652361.php
| 2022-12-14T01:25:49
|
en
| 0.69774
|
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/tennessee-titans/articles/41862988
| 2022-12-14T01:25:49
|
en
| 0.738227
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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The streets of Argentina turned into a party Tuesday as the national team beat Croatia by a comfortable 3-0 and earned this soccer-crazed South American country a spot in the World Cup final.
Fans poured onto the streets of the capital of Buenos Aires as soon as the match ended, with people waving Argentina flags out of their cars while others jumped and sang in joy amid a sea of wearing the national team’s jersey.
Earlier, Buenos Aires had come to a standstill on what was a scorching summer afternoon as fans packed cafes, restaurants and public plazas, where giant screens followed the exploits of the Lionel Messi-led team.
“I’m in complete ecstasy,” said Emiliano Adam, 31, who works at an advertising agency and was celebrating in the streets of Buenos Aires while wearing the country's flag as a cape. “This is the first match that didn't make me suffer, the first time I could enjoy a match from beginning to end."
Argentina will now play the last match of the World Cup against either France or Morocco, who are facing off Wednesday.
With that final match still days away, Tuesday turned into a day of joy as thousands of people descended on the capital’s iconic Obelisk.
The agonizing start of the tournament for Argentina was followed by a string of victories that have brought some much-needed joy to a country stuck in an economic standstill with one of the world’s highest inflation rates, closing in on almost 100% per year, and where close to four of every 10 people live in poverty.
“We’re all super excited, it’s been so long since we’ve lived a happiness like this. It’s beautiful, I mean look at this,” said Laila Desmery, a 27-year-old actress, as she pointed to people dancing and celebrating on the street. "It’s really unexplainable the joy that we’re going to be living through in the next few days.”
The sky-high hopes for the Argentina team only increased here after the quarter-final against the Netherlands, an agonizing match that ended in a penalty shootout and led to a collective feeling the team that had shocked the world by losing its opening match against Saudi Arabia had finally found its groove.
“This was the antithesis of the last match, we won easily, with ample advantage and without moments of so much tension and stress,” said Valentina González, 31, a social media manager.
Mariano Balestrasse said he was particularly proud of how the national team “has improved significantly every day and in every match you could see an improvement.”
In that sense, the shocking loss against Saudi Arabia “helped consolidate the team,” the 28-year-old architect said.
“This team connected a lot with the people, you can tell they’re very united and they transmit that,” said Abe Pérez, a 52-year-old civil servant.
In a traditional café in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo, those who had been nervously staring at the television screen exploded in jubilation when Messi scored a penalty kick, ending what had been an agonizing goalless 33 minutes.
“Messi, Messi, Messi,” the crowd started chanting as they moved their arms in a worshipping ovation.
It was only five minutes later, before the crowd had even had a chance to cool down that Julián Álvarez scored an impressive goal, taking the score to 2-0.
By the second half, the crowd was ecstatic and when Álvarez, with an assist from Messi, scored a third goal, the joy overflowed with people jumping on chairs, kissing and hugging.
“Holding Messi by the hand, we’re going to go all the way,” the crowd chanted.
Tuesday's victory and reaching the World Cup final was even sweeter due to the initial difficulties that the team faced in the tournament, González said.
“It seems that it always has to be difficult to get there, but we get there and we win. It’s as if there is no winning without suffering,” the 27-year-old said.
The initial stumble gives more “mysticism” to the country now reaching the final, Desmery said.
“Many people say that we like to suffer because if we don't suffer it's as if nothing is happening, and, well, this is a little like that," Desmery said. “As Argentines, we like to feel a lot and then the celebration is three, four times as large.”
|
https://www.myjournalcourier.com/sports/article/Streets-of-Argentina-turn-into-party-as-team-17652187.php
| 2022-12-14T01:25:54
|
en
| 0.974483
|
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/tennessee-titans/articles/41863046
| 2022-12-14T01:25:55
|
en
| 0.738227
|
WFO MIDLAND/ODESSA Warnings, Watches and Advisories for Wednesday, December 14, 2022
_____
HIGH WIND WARNING
URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
National Weather Service Midland/Odessa TX
629 PM CST Tue Dec 13 2022
...HIGH WIND WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST /5 PM MST/
WEDNESDAY...
* WHAT...West winds 35 to 45 mph with gusts up to 60 mph.
* WHERE...Guadalupe and Delaware Mountains.
* WHEN...Until 6 PM CST /5 PM MST/ Wednesday.
* IMPACTS...Travel will be difficult, especially for high profile
vehicles. Severe turbulence near the mountains will be hazardous
for low flying light aircraft.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
People should avoid being outside in forested areas and around
trees and branches. If possible, remain in the lower levels of
your home during the windstorm, and avoid windows. Use caution if
you must drive.
...HIGH WIND WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM CST WEDNESDAY
THROUGH WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON...
* WHAT...West winds 30 to 40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph
possible.
* WHERE...Davis Mountains.
* WHEN...From 6 AM CST Wednesday through Wednesday afternoon.
Monitor the latest forecasts and warnings for updates on this
situation. Fasten loose objects or shelter objects in a safe
location prior to the onset of winds.
_____
Copyright 2022 AccuWeather
|
https://www.chron.com/weather/article/TX-WFO-MIDLAND-ODESSA-Warnings-Watches-and-17652320.php
| 2022-12-14T01:26:01
|
en
| 0.840581
|
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.
|
https://sportspyder.com/nfl/tennessee-titans/articles/41863215
| 2022-12-14T01:26:01
|
en
| 0.738227
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